KAPUR CHAND Vs. HARDAM SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant herein, who was plaintiff before the trial court, filed a suit on 28.4.1979, seeking a permanent injunction for restraining the respondent (defendant) herein from taking forcible possession of the suit land from him. The case set up in the plaint was that land was in his cultivating possession and that of his brother Matu Ram, as a tenant, for the last many years- a fact which, according to him, was clear from the khasra girdawari for the year 197172 and jamabandis for the years 1965-66 and 1975-76. The respondent- defendant, later, purchased it from some of the cosharers vide a registered sale-deed, wherein he wrongly got it incorporated that it was in his possession. In the girdawari for the crop of kharif 1978, he got a false entry of possession made in his favour. So, fearing that the respondent- defendant may not succeed in taking forcible possession of the land, the appellant-plaintiff filed a suit for permanent injunction. The respondent-defendant, on the other hand, pleaded that he was in possession of the land much prior to its purchase by him vide registered sale-deed dated 18.4.1979. His possession over it was, earlier, as a tenant, under some of the co-sharers, but after its purchase, it became as that of an owner. The suit was alleged to be barred by res-judicata also. It was pleaded that a similar suit for permanent injunction filed by the plaintiff and his brother (Matu Ram) in respect of this land, had been dismissed by the civil court, on 20.12.1972.

(2.) The trial court initially framed the following issues (on 15.6.1979): 1. Whether the defendant is in possession of the property as tenant? OPP 2. Whether the suit is barred by the principle of resjudicata? OPP

(3.) Whether the plaintiff is entitled to the injunction prayed for? OPP