(MIAN) PIR BUX Vs. MOHOMED TAHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff in this suit, who is the respondent in the appeal prays the Court (1) to declare him to be the rightful owner of the southern half of a plot of land in New Sukkur, and (2) to put him in possession thereof by dispossessing the defendant, who is the present appellant. The action was also directed against the Secretary of State for India in Council who however took no part in the The District Judge dismissed the suit. On appeal his judgment was reversed by the court of the Judicial Commissioner of Sind, and a decree for possession granted in favour of the plaintiff. Hence the present appeal by the unsuccessful defendant. It will be convenient to refer to the parties in their original characters of plaintiff and defendant, bearing in mind that the plaintiff is now the respondent and the defendant now the appellant.

(2.) The circumstances in which the defendant came to be in possession of the half-plot of land from which the plaintiff seeks to eject him may be shortly stated: In the year 1919 the plaintiff and the defendant were both applicants for a grant of the same plot of building ground in New Sukkur. The Collector, by order dated 25th February 1919, granted the northern half of the plot to the defendant, and the southern half to the plaintiff. Instruments giving effect to the grants were duly executed and registered. Each party entered into possession of his respective half plot and began building operations. The plaintiff is an Afghan refugee and political pensioner who formerly resided at Quetta, but at the date of the grant in his favour was living under orders at Sukkur. He was understood to be desirous of returning to Quetta, and the Collector accordingly directed in the order making the grant to him of the southern half-plot that he "should be requested to execute a private agreement with [the defendant, the grantee of the other half-plot] to sell him his half of the land at cost price if he gets permission to go to Quetta by the middle of May next."

(3.) In compliance with this request, the plaintiff, on 25 March 1919, executed an agreement declaring that if during May 1919, he should get permission to live, permanently at Quetta as before he would sell his half- plot to the defendant at cost price. On 23 May 1919, the Collector addressed a communication to the plaintiff informing him that he had been allowed by the Government to return to Quetta, and on or about the 4 June the plaintiff and his family left for Quetta. He was then called upon to execute a conveyance of his half-plot in favour of the defendant in terms of his agreement. He appears to have raised some question as to whether the permission which he had received entitled him to reside permanently at Quetta, and the Collector was authorised to inform him that this was so. Nevertheless, he failed to execute a conveyance in favour of the defendant, and on 22 December, 1920, the Collector made an order cancelling the grant in his favour of the southern half-plot. The plaintiff appealed against this order to the Commissioner, who declined to recall it. On 17 March 1921, the Collector made a new grant of the southern half-plot to the defendant, who entered into possession and proceeded to carry on building operations upon it.