DAYA SINGH Vs. AJAIB SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant and the respondent, who are brothers, were the joint owners of agricultural land measuring 92 kanals 13 marlas. For its partition, the respondent instituted proceedings before the Revenue Officer, wherein the appellant alleged that a private partition had taken place between them, according to which the land measuring 80 kanals, 7 marlas fell to his share and the remaining to the share of the respondent. But the Revenue Officer brushed aside that objection and proceeded with the partition which necessitated the filing of the present suit.

(2.) In the suit, the appellant claimed a declaration that he was the owner in possession of 80 kanals, 7 marlas according to the private partition and that the order of the Tehsildar partitioning the property was void and ineffective. The plea of the appellant was negatived by the trial Court as well as by the Appellate Court. Still dissatisfied, he has come up in this second appeal.

(3.) Two contentions have been raised in this appeal. Firstly, that the order of partition was void as under Section 117 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 only two courses were open to the Revenue Officer when the question of title was raised, i.e., either to constitute itself as the civil Court or to refer the partition to the civil Court on the question of title. Reliance for this proposition was placed on Ram Gopal and others V. The State of Punjab and others,1965 PunLR 1102, Tirath Ram and others V. Mt. Nihal Devi, 1931 AIR(Lah) 664 Bachan Singh V. Madan Singh and others, No. 61 Punjab Record 1897, and Ata Muhammad Khan and others V. Arjan Singh and another, No. 72 Punjab Record 1896. The latter two are Full Bench decisions. None of these decisions, in my view, is of any help to the appellant in the present case. No doubt, if the Revenue Officer had, under Section 116 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, come to the conclusion that question of title was involved then he had no jurisdiction to proceed further with the partition but where the Revenue Officer comes to the conclusion that no question of title is involved whether rightly or wrongly and proceeds to carry out the partition, it cannot be said that the proceedings taken were without jurisdiction. The first contention of the learned counsel, therefore, has to be over-ruled.