KIRPA Vs. DEVIDITTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a defendants' application in revision against the judgment and decree of the learned District Judge of Chamba, dated 18 1 1952 whereby, allowing the plaintiffs' appeal and setting aside the judgment and decree of the Subordinate Judge of Chamba, dated 29 9 1951, he partially decreed the suit of the plaintiffs respondents.

(2.) THE houses of the parties are close to each other and are separated only by a lane. It is common ground that a partition has already taken place between them and each party has been allotted his moiety share. Adjacent to the house of the defendants and to the south of it lies a plot of land 2 marlas in area. The dispute in the present case relates to a portion of the said plot of land nearest to the house of the defendants. The defendants started certain constructions on this area and the plaintiffs filed the present suit for the demolition of the constructions and for an injunction perpetually to restrain the defendants from building on that area. The suit was based on two grounds: (1) that the area in dispute belongs to the plaintiffs as it had been allotted to them in the said partition, and (2) that the strip of the land in suit served as a passage for approach to the plaintiffs' thrashing floor for plaintiffs themselves and his cattle which had been totally obstructed. The defendants denied the title of the plaintiffs and set up their own title, their contention being that the strip of land in suit had been allotted to them in partition, and they also denied that the disputed land in question was in any way in the use and occupation of the plaintiffs.

(3.) THERE was a preliminary objection raised by the learned counsel for the plaintiffs respondents that this Court is not authorised in exercise of its revisional jurisdiction to interfere with the appellate judgment of the District Judge, and in support of this contention he relied upon the ruling of their Lordships of the Privy Council reported as 'Venkatagiri Ayyangar v. Hindu Religious Endowments Board, Madras', AIR 1949 PC 156, and of a decision of the Allahabad High Court reported as' 'Surya Pal Singh v. Chiranji', AIR 1944 All 170 (FB). The latter ruling only incidentally, and therefore very briefly, dealt with the question of interference in exercise of revisional jurisdiction, but the matter was the main subject of decision in the said ruling of their Lordships of the Privy Council. It was laid down by their Lordships as follows: