MANGE Vs. DES RAJ

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal filed under Clause 10 of the Letters Patent by Mange and others, plaintiffs in the original suit, against the order of a learned Single Judge dismissing their second appeal and upholding the order of the Additional District fudge accepting the defendants' appeal and dismissing the suit.

(2.) THE facts are that by a registered deed dated the 30th of May, 1893 Hasti gifted 37 bighas 6 biswas of land and a house to some of his collaterals, the share of Bahala, the ancestor of the plaintiffs, being one-third while the remaining two-thirds went to Ganga Ram, Majla and Jug Ram, the ancestors of the defendants. The donor was a resident of a village called Deeghal while the donees resided in a village called Bhupania and it was stated in the deed that if the donees who resided in Bhupania did not settle in Deeghal they would not be entitled to alienate the property by way of sale or mortgage. This was followed by a mutation in 1896. When Hasti died in 1904 Ramji Lal son of Bahala and predecessor of the plaintiffs tried to claim a further 70 Bhighas of land left by Hasti on the ground that the other donees had not settled in Deeghal, but this attempt was unsuccessful and me land was mutated in the names or all the donees, and all me land once owned by Hasti has continued to be shown in their names and names of their descendants as joint owners ever since.

(3.) THERE seems to be no doubt that the whole of the land at Deeghal has remained in possession of the descendants of Bahala and that the defendants or their predecessors at no stage made any attempt to interfere with their enjoyment of the land. Indeed no threat to the plaintiffs' enjoyment of the land appeared on the horizon until consolidation proceedings started in the village of Deeghal in 1960, and in those proceedings the authorities were bound to give effect to the entries regarding ownership in the revenue records. It was on this account that the plaintiffs instituted the suit which has given rise to this appeal in December 1960 claiming a declaration that they were the sole owners or the whole of the land which formerly belonged to Hasti on the ground that the defendants had lost any rights they may ever have had in the land.