KHUDA BAX Vs. RAGHUNANDAN LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The suit out of which this appeal has arisen was brought by one Raghunandan Khattri to recover a sum of Rs. 100 from the defendants as damages on account of the price of wood of a pipul tree which, it was alleged, defendants had wrongly cut and appropriated from a Plot No. 493, said to be situated in the plaintiff's zamindari. There ware three sets of defendants in the case. In the plaint it was said that the first and third Set of defendants had colluded and cut the pipul tree without any right and had sold the: timber to the second set of defendants.

(2.) The main defence to the suit was that Plot No. 493 on which this pipul tree was situated was wakf property, being a piece of land dedicated as a graveyard and which was used by the bhatiyara residents of the town of Atrauli for burying their dead.

(3.) The Court of first instance dismissed the plaintiff's suit. The Munsif was of opinion that there was evidence that the property had been dedicated for the purposes of a cemetery and that the plaintiff had lost all right to his land and was, therefore, not in a position to assert that he had any title to the pipul tree. In appeal this judgment has been reversed and the plaintiff's claim has been decreed for a portion of the sum claimed. The defendants have now come here in second appeal, and it is argued that the decision of the Court below is wrong because a certain document of agreement of the year 1867 has been wrongly construed by the learned Additional Judge of Aligarh.