(1.) The plaintiff filed a suit to eject the defendant from some huts, and from a plot of land claiming that he was the sole owner of the land on the ground that the defendant was a trespasser. He had previously filed two suits alleging that the defendant was his tenant but both were dismissed on the ground that he had failed to prove any tenancy. In this suit the plaintiff satisfied the two lower Courts that he was the sole owner of the land, but the suit was dismissed on the ground that it had not been filed within 12 years from the time when the plaintiff was dispossessed of the land by the defendant. It has been found as a fact that the defendant has been in possession of the disputed land for 18 or 19 years. The only point that was urged in second appeal was that the possession of the defendant was not adverse to the plaintiff in respect of a half share in the land, because of her admissions in her written statement. The defendant in her written statement para. 6, stated that one Satyapada Das had been in possession of a land for over 12 years and in para. 7 stated: This defendant never denied the title of the plaintiff...on the other hand this defendant has bean admitting all along that in the disputed bastu the plaintiff is 8 annas malik and Satyapada Das is a cosharer malik of the remaining 8 annas.
(2.) The defendant was given possession by this Satyapada Das. Reliance was placed on the case of Ishan Chandra., Mitter V/s. Ramranjan Chakrabutty (1905) 2 CLJ 125, where it was held that a tenant who had encroached on his landlord's land for 12 years, acquired a right of tenancy in the land so held. Mookerji, J., held that: the extent of the dispossession depends on the extent of the claim of right under which possession by the trespasser is obtained and kept.
(3.) This he said applied where the landlord allows a tenant to hold an encroachment on the same terms as if it had been part of the holding. He added: the nature and effect of possession must depend upon the nature and extent of the rights asserted by the overt conduct or express declaration of the person relying on it.