SHAM LAL Vs. SULTAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS second appeal arises out of a suit which has had a somewhat chequered carrier. The appellants before us are the defendants in the suit. Seven persons laid the suit in the court of the Subordinate Judge at Baramulla for a declaration that they were owners of the suit land as the nearest heirs of the last owner and that defendants 1 and 2 who were alleged to be strangers to the last owners family and the other defendants who were the assigns of defendants 1 and 2 had no manner of right or title to it.

(2.) THE ground on which the lower appellate court dismissed the appeal as incompetent was that two of the plaintiffs and the legal representatives of three other plaintiffs were not made party -respondents to the appeal within the period of limitation. It is necessary, at this stage, to set out certain facts in order to bring out clearly the reasons for the decision of the lower appellate court.

(3.) AFTER the case was last remanded by this court to the trial court three of the plaintiffs, Samad, Rehman and Habib, died and their legal representatives were ordered by the trial court to be brought on record as co -plaintiffs. The plaintiffs also applied that two other persons, namely, Mst. Shafli and Aziz should be brought into the array of the plaintiffs. This application was granted by the trial court; but the decree passed by the trial court did not show in its title the names of any of the legal representatives of the three plaintiffs nor the names of the two newly added plaintiffs.