GRAM PANCHAYAT Vs. TOTI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A suit for the possession of a residential site in the abadi of village Khurana having been dismissed by the lower appellate Court, the plaintiffs-Gram Panchayat have filed this regular second appeal. Their suit had been decreed by the trial Court but the first appeal filed by the defendant-respondents had succeeded in the Court of the Additional District Judge at Karnal.

(2.) The appellant's case was that the residential site in dispute bearing khasra abadi No. 129 had been given to the ancestors of Shrimati Mano P.W. for residence as non-proprietors and that with the coming into force of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1954, Punjab Act No. 1 of 1954, Shrimati Mano had become full owner of the site. She was described to have gifted the site by registered deed, Exhibit P.1, dated 30.12.1960 in favour of the Panchayat. The defendant-respondents were described to have taken possession of the site in a high-handed manner and to have enclosed it as a part of their own house towards the west of the site by erecting a compound wall a few months before the filing of the present suit on 23.2.1961. The appellant-Gram Panchayat, therefore, wanted a decree for the dispossession of the defendant-respondents from the site in dispute.

(3.) The defendant-respondents denied that Shrimati Mano or her ancestors had ever been allotted this site or that she had been in possession. They claim that they had been in possession from times immemorial and that they had built upon the site in dispute and were the owners. The learned trial Court found that the execution of the gift deed, Exhibit P.1, by Shrimati Mano had been proved and that she was the owner of the site. The suit filed by the Gram Panchayat had, therefore, been decreed by the learned trial Court.