MEHAR SINGH Vs. PUNJAB WAKF BOARD, BATHINDA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Suit for possession filed by the respondent-Punjab Wakf Board, (in short "the Board"), stands decreed by the Punjab Wakf Board Tribunal, Bathinda on 9.10.2003, which judgment and decree has been challenged by the defendant by filing the present revision under Section 83 of the Wakf Act, 1995 (in short "the Act").

(2.) According to the plaintiff, the suit property which is a plot, is part of Khangha Hazi-Rattan, Bathinda and, therefore, vested in the Board. The defendant had illegally and unauthorizedly occupied the same and raised construction thereupon without having any legal right. The defendant was asked time and again by the officers of the Board to deliver the possession of the disputed property but he had been putting off the matter and had refused to deliver its possession.

(3.) The stand of the defendant was that the Board had no locus-standi to file the suit, the suit was not maintainable in the present form, the Board was estopped from filing the present suit by its act and conduct and that the suit had been filed on frivolous grounds. On merits, it was alleged that the Board was neither owner nor had any right or interest in the suit property. In case, it is held by the Court that the property in question was the ownership of the Board then, in the alternative, the plea of the defendant was that he had become owner of the same being in its unauthorized possession since March, 1981. His possession was open, hostile, notorious, continuous and uninterrupted to the knowledge of the Board and, accordingly, the same had ripened into ownership.