AHMAD WANI Vs. LASSU GANAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a defendants second appeal against a decree of the learned District Judge Baramulla dated 14 -5 -65 whereby he accepted an appeal preferred against the judgment and decree of the Sub -judge Baramulla dated 30 -12 64. The trial court had dismissed the suit of the plaintiffs whose suit was for a declaration that they were owners of property measuring 17 ks. and 5 ms. of land in khewat No. 129 consisting of various survey numbers situate in Koil Mukam Tehsil Sopore. The plaintiffs in their plaint had given a pedigree table according to which one Wahab the grandfather of plaintiff 3 and defendant 11 had by means of a mutation gifted 15 kanals of land to one Shaban who was the son of a previous husband of a wife of Wahab. According to the plaintiffs Shaban had got mutated in his name the land of Wahab but he was never in possession. There were some further mutations on the bans of the original mutation of Shaban. The plaintiffs had been in continuous possession of the land for the last 45 . years as owners. Defendants 1 to 3 and the father of defendants 4 and 5 Sammad Doomb lived in Kanthipura village which was at a distance of 40 miles from the land in dispute. None of these persons was in possession of the property, but they had manipulated to get mutations effected in their favour. The possession of the plaintiffs being adverse to that of the contesting defendants for more than 12 years had ripened into ownership ,the contesting defendants had admitted before the mutation authority that they nor their predecessors were ever in possession of the property. The plaintiffs claimed a declaration to this property.

(2.) THE defence of the defendants was that the valuation of the property was wrongly placed, that there were other necessary parties, that the land had been mutated in favour of Shaban who became a full owner and after that it was mutated in favour of his successors and heirs. The last mutation had been effected in their favour on 15 -3 -1982 B. The defendants had been getting some usufruct of the property from the plaintiffs.

(3.) ON the pleadings of the parties the trial court struck the following issues in this case : -