GOPAL CHANDRA MAITI Vs. SMMONMOHINI DASI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The facts of the case out of which this appeal arises are as follows. There is a tract of land in the Sunder buns of which defendant 1 took a lease from the Government and in 1901 the plaintiff's vendor obtained a lease of some 100 bighas of this land from defendant 1. In 1906 the lease which had been granted to the plaintiff's vendor's lessor was cancelled by the Government and a fresh lease was granted on the 16 August 1907. The plaintiff purchased the lease of Kalachand in the year 1910. It was his case in the first Court that he was in possession of his land by cutting wood and exercising other acts of possession till he was dispossessed by defendants 2 and 3 in 1914. Defendants 4 and 5, the purchasers of the interests of defendants 2 and 3, contested the, suit. Their main ground was that the suit was barred by limitation both general and special and that the plaintiff had acquired no title to the land in suit by his purchase which was not a genuine transaction, that ever if the alleged purchase was a genuine one, the identity of the land in suit could not be established in the locale and that the plaintiff's vendor's title was extinguished when the lease to defendant 1 was cancelled in 1906.

(2.) A number of issues were framed and the first Court decided the case in favour of the plaintiff and decreed the suit with costs. On appeal to the District Court the learned District Judge held that the plaintiff's case was barred by limitation,, and hence he allowed the appeal and dismissed the suit.

(3.) The plaintiff has appealed to this Court. He has contended that the suit was not barred by limitation. The case which he-now seeks to make to avoid the bar of limitation is that the dispossession took place in 1908 when defendant 1 granted a lease to defendants 2 and 3. Up to that time he was in constructive possession, because he had title to the land and the land was virgin jungle and no one else was in possession. As there were no acts of possession exercised on the land possession is to be considered as following the title.