KOVUMMAL AMMAD Vs. URATHKANDIYIL ARANGADAN AMMAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals arise out of suits in ejectment instituted by the plaintiff for recovery of possession of various items of properties comprised in the schedules to the plaints. The parties to the suit are governed by Muhammadan Law and their relationship appears from the following genealogical table.

(2.) All the suits were tried together and the evidence appears to have been taken in O.S. No. 261 of 1927 out of which S.A. No. 1862 of 1931 arises. It will appear from the above genealogy that defendants 1 and 12 therein are the son and daughter of one Pokker, the nephew of the plaintiff. They were also the main contesting defendants in the other suits. It is common ground that the properfies in suit belonged either to one Kunhamad the original ancestor or Amina the mother of the plaintiff. It is also common ground that in 1038 there was a partition between the sons and daughters of Kunhamad in and by which the sons together took certain properties and the daughters together took other properties. Subsequent to the said partition, the rights of Avulla, one of the sons, were purchased by the other two brothers Moideen and Mamavu. Again in 1050 or 1051 there was a partition between the descendants of Moideen represented by the plaintiff and Kunhamad Kutti as representing Mamavu's descendants and in that partition the plaintiff as representing Moidin's branch obtained the suit properties and other properties. It is the case of the plaintiff that ever since the date of the said partition in 1050 he has been in exclusive possession, and enjoyment of the properties adversely to the rights of the descendants of his nephew Pokker and other heirs of Moidin excepting his younger brother Moothan and the children of his sister Biyathumma and that therefore he has acquired title thereto by adverse possession and that the children of his nephew Pokker have no manner of right thereto, and that on the 6 April 1927 they trespassed into the suit property and forcibly took away certain cocoanuts and jack fruits. The plaintiff therefore seeks to recover damages and possession on the basis of the title so set up by him in the plaint.

(3.) O.S. No. 261 of 1927 comprises two items. In.regard to item 2 the defendants gave up their claim but in regard to item 1 their case is that the property was the stridhanam property of their grandmother Pathumma and that she had always been in possession and enjoyment thereof. In regard to the items in the other suits, the main defence was that these properties being joint properties got by descent, were not the exclusive properties of the plaintiff, that he did not acquire any title to them by adverse possession and that he was never in exclusive possession thereof but that they were allotted to the defendants as and by way of maintenance and that it was not open to the plaintiff to seek to recover possession of the same. In regard to item 1, the learned District Munsif negatived the claim as to stridhanam but found that the plaintiff was never in possession of the same and that his right to possession must be negatived. This was affirmed by the learned District Judge.