MIRTUNJAY SINGH Vs. JUGA URAON

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal against a decision of the Additional Subordinate Judge of Hazaribagh reversing a decision of the Munsif of Hazaribagh and decreeing the suit for declaration of title in respect of eight annas odd share of land which have been attached under Section 146, Criminal P.C.

(2.) The land in question was within the zemindary of defendants 9 and 10 who have been held to be mundari khuntkattidars, which is in accordance with the survey record of rights, though an attempt was made on behalf of the plaintiff, respondents to dispute this fact in the lower Courts. The plaintiffs are not mundas. The plaintiffs allege that they got settlement of certain land in 1922 from the father of defendants 9 and 10 and made some reclamation extending beyond the limits of the land then settled with them. They allege that they took a further settlement in 1937 from defendants 9 and 10. The lower Courts have held that as the plaintiffs were not mundari khuntkattidars any settlement with them was invalid under the provisions of Section 240, Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act. The lower appellate Court has, however, held that the plaintiffs were entitled to a decree on the basis that they have acquired rights of occupancy by adverse possession in accordance with the decision in Lal Sahi Pallian V/s. Deba Munda A.I.R. 1928 Pat. 87. In that decision in Lal Sahi Pallian V/s. Deba Munda A.I.R. 1928 Pat. 87, the plaintiffs sued the defendants for possession of lands alleging that the defendants had dispossessed them. They claimed to have themselves made the lands into korkar by preparing them for paddy cultivation. It was decided that it is not merely a tenan or resident of a village who can make korkar in that village, and that where the tenants reclaimed lands of a certain village and mundari khuntkattidars sued as maliks to eject them after the expiry of two years from the commencement of that reclamation, they could not be ejected from the land as the suit was barred under Section 64(3), Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act.

(3.) It was urged for the respondent that there is no finding by the appellate Court that the plaintiffs actually made korkar of the land now in suit. It is true that the plaint and the written statement do not mention the word korkar. The plaintiffs had claimed to have reclaimed the land in suit but did not state specifically in their plaint that they had reclaimed it as paddy land. By a reference to the evidence, however, I have ascertained that it was the case of both parties that the land had been converted into paddy land, and it is also clear that in the trial Court there was a dispute in the evidence as to whether the land had been reclaimed by the plaintiff or by the defendant, and the trial Court accepted the plaintiff's evidence on this point. Now, the appellate Court in dealing with the question of possession has stated, after referring to certain-documents: Then again there is the oral evidence of the plaintiffs witnesses whose evidence has been believed by the learned Munsif for reasons recorded by him in his judgment and which I do not consider necessary to reiterate here. Later he stated: The position therefore is this that plaintiffs have been in possession of the suit lands under an invalid lease ever since March, 1923 without any objection by the landlord and hence I am of opinion that they have acquired a right of occupancy by adverse possession: vide Lal Sahi Pallian V/s. Deba Munda A.I.R. 1928 Pat. 87. There is nothing in Chap. 18 of the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act to prevent accrual of occupancy rights in korkar lands brought into cultivation out of the mundari kuntkatti lands: vide Lal Sahi Pallian V/s. Deba Munda A.I.R. 1928 Pat. 87.