BALBIR SINGH Vs. SURMUKH SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a regular second appeal from the judgment of the Additional District Judge, Gurdaspur, allowing appeal from the judgment of the Senior Subordinate Judge. The facts giving rise to this litigation are that the defendants appellants are the landlords of an agricultural land and the plaintiff respondent is stated to be the tenant. The landlords had moved the Assistant Collector, First Grade. Gurdaspur, for the eviction of Surmukh Singh on the ground that he was the tenant and was liable to ejectment under the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act. An objection was raised before the Assistant Collector by Surmukh Singh that he had no jurisdiction as there did not exist relationship of tenant and landlord between them. This contention of his was repelled by the Assistant Collector and he ordered his eviction. Surmukh Singh then filed an appeal before the Collector who affirmed the order of the Assistant Collector. It was agitated before the Collector that Surmukh Singh was owner of the land by adverse possession. This contention did not prevail before the Collector. Surmukh Singh then instituted a civil suit in the Court of the Senior Subordinate Judge for a declaration that the order of the Collector affirming that of the Assistant Collector for his ejectment from the land which measured 49 kanals was without jurisdiction, illegal, ultra vires and he prayed for the consequential relief in the form of permanent injunction to restrain the defendants from dispossessing him from the said land in execution of the order of the Collector. The landlords who were the defendants before the trial Court maintained that the plaintiff was their tenant and the Revenue Officers acted within the scope of their jurisdiction which exclusively vested in them under the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act. On the pleadings of the parties, the following issues were framed: