RAVILA PARTICHELAMANNA Vs. RAVILA PARTI RAMA RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case the plaintiff s suit is for the recovery of certain lands in the possession of the defendants. Both the lower courts have found the plaintiff s title and possession within 12 years prior to the suit proved.

(2.) The only question in this second appeal is whether the plaintiff s claim is unsustainable in consequence of a compromise entered into between the parties in a prior suit - O.S. No. 363 of 1904. That suit was instituted by the plaintiff against the present defendants and others for the recovery of another plot of land. The parties entered into a compromise in that suit. By the terms of that compromise it was settled inter alia that both the land sued for then and the lands which form the subject-matter of this suit should be divided into two moieties and that the plaintiff should take one moiety and the defendants the other moiety. The agreement of compromise was not registered under Act III of 1877. The plaintiff being then a minor, the compromise was submitted to the court under the provisions of Section 462 of the then Civil Procedure Code and the court gave leave to the plaintiff s next friend to enter into the compromise, holding it to be beneficial to the minor. A decree was afterwards passed in terms of the compromise in so far as it related to the property which was then sued for. The court, of course, could not pass a decree then in respect of the properties now in suit, as they were not included in the claim then made.

(3.) The plaintiff, it may be noted, attempted to get a share of the properties now sued for in the execution of the decree in that suit. His attempt naturally failed as the decree did not cover these properties. Both the lower courts have held that the defendants could not rely on the compromise as defence to this suit as it was compulsorily registrable under the provisions of Section 17 of the Registration Act.