(PENUMETCHA) SEETHARAMA RAJU Vs. KALIDINDI NARAYANARAJU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff m O.S. No. 287 of 1929 and defendant in O.S. No. 203 of 1930 is the appellant. He sued for possession of certain land which he claimed to have been demarcated as his by orders of a Survey Officer dated 30 September 1926 while plaintiffs in O.S. No. 203 of 1930 sued to set the order aside. The latter suit; was instituted on 1 July 1930 and was clearly out of time. The appellant's suit was decreed by the District Munsif and dismissed by the Subordinate Judge in appeal who also gave the plaintiffs in O.S. No. 203 of 1930 a decree. The Subordinate Judge found that the defendants had a title by adverse possession and that plaintiff had not proved possession within 12 years of suit, in appeal it is contended that the decision of the Survey Officer was conclusive against the defendants. It is therefore necessary to enquire what the Survey; Officer decided. Ex. A is appellant's petition to him. In it he claims title to the lands as forming part of suit No. 251 of which the defendants had added the portion now in dispute to their land (Suit No. 254). The land should therefore be remeasured and re-demarcated. The order of the Survey Officer runs: The complaint is allowed and the plots contested are ordered to be surveyed as petitioner's lands by effecting sub-divisions of them infields Nos. 254 and 241.

(2.) This was done but possession was not given. Under Section 13, Survey and Boundaries Act, the survey shall be con-elusive proof that the boundaries determined and recorded therein have been correctly determined and recorded, and Section 14 makes the order in dispute under Secs.10 and 11 final unless set aside by a suit filed within three years from the date of the order. Authority is clear : vide Muthurulandi Poosari V/s. Sethuram Ayyar 1919 Mad. 779 and Ramamurthi V/s. Narayana Gajapathi 1933 Mad 279, that the decision of a Survey Officer is not limited to the correctness of the boundaries determined. In Muthurulandi Poosari V/s. Sethuram Ayyar 1919 Mad. 779, the question referred to the Full Bench was, when a plaintiff's claim has been disallowed under the Survey and Boundaries Act 4 of 1897, but he has been in possession of the property, does the decision of the Survey Officer operate as res judicata in a subsequent suit for possession?

(3.) The answer was, the order was...conclusive as to the rights of the parties and nonetheless so because the unsuccessful party, who was in possession at the date of the order was not subsequently ousted from possession.