GANTHAKORU MANGAMMA Vs. DULLA PAIDAYYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the decree of the Subordinate Judge of Chicacole dated the 19 November 1936 reversing on appeal the decree of the District Munsif of Vizagapatam dated the 10 November, 1932 in O.S. No. 175 of 1932. The reversal was based on a single ground namely, that the plaintiff had failed to show that she or her vendors had possession of the suit property at any time within 12 years prior to the suit and that therefore the suit was barred by limitation. The other points which arose in the case and which had been decided in favour of the plaintiff were not considered by the lower appellate Court and indeed the main complaint by the appellant has been that the judgment of the lower appellate Court does not satisfy the legal requirements of a judgment.

(2.) This is a case in which by a curious irony, the Subordinate Judge who decided the case was an officer junior in rank to the District Munsif who decided the case as the trial Judge. This is accounted for by the fact that nearly four years elapsed between the decision by the trial Judge and the decision in appeal.

(3.) The question of possession was dealt with by the trial Court in a careful judgment covering a lot of ground and no attempt was made by the lower appellate Court to come to close quarters with the evidence in the case or to meet the reasoning of the trial Court in support of its conclusion. In other words, this is a case to which the observations of their Lordships of the Judicial Committee in Rani Hemantha Kumari Debt V/s. Maharaja Jagindra Nath Roy Bahadur (1906) 16 M.L.J. 272 at 274 would apply, namely, that the judgment in appeal does not come to close quarters with the judgment which it reviews and indeed never discusses or alludes to the reasoning of the trial Judge. In such a case their Lordships observed that this characteristic of the appellate Court's judgment "seriously invalidates its authority". The entire evidence is dealt with very unsatisfactorily by the lower appellate Court in a few sentences and no reference is made to the documentary evidence on the side of the plaintiff and no reason is given for rejecting the conclusion of the trial Judge as regards the credibility of the witnesses examined on the side of the plaintiff. On the other hand, the documentary evidence on the side of the defendants was accepted without question by the lower appellate Court in spite of the several reasons given by the trial Judge for rejecting the documentary evidence. On the whole, I have no doubt that this is a case in which the judgment of the lower appellate Court does not satisfy the requirements of the law and must therefore be deemed to be a judgment vitiated by an error in procedure.;