RULHU RAM DEWAT RAM Vs. THAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS order will dispose of Regular Second Appeals Nos. 117 to 124 of 1966. The respondents are the same in all the cases, the appellants are different persons.

(2.) THE appellants in the year 1962 filed separate suits against the respondents for a declaration that they were the owners of the land in dispute by adverse possession. These suits were contested by the present respondents. They raised the plea that the plaintiffs in those suits were tenants and, therefore, their possession was permissive and there was no question of their becoming the owners by adverse possession. The suits ultimately failed on the ground that the plaintiffs had failed to prove that they had become owners by adverse possession of the land in dispute. It may be mentioned that there was no issue framed in these suits as to whether the plaintiffs were tenants of the defendants, the present respondents.

(3.) THE present suits out of which these eight Second Appeals have arisen were filed by the then defendants in the earlier suits for possession of the land on the ground that the defendants were trespassers and not entitled to hold possession of the land. The defendants raised the plea that they were the tenants of the land in dispute and in any case, the plaintiffs were estopped from contending that the defendants were not tenants of the land in dispute. It may also be mentioned that the defendants raised the plea that the plaintiffs were not the owners of the land in dispute and they claimed title to the land by adverse possession. On the pleadings of the parties, the following five issues were framed by the trial Court:-