MUNIA SERVAI Vs. THANGARAYA ONTURIYAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner seeks to revise the order of the Additional First Class Magistrate of Kumbakonam passed tinder Section 145 of the Criminal P. C. under the following circumstances.

(2.) The property in dispute of an area of 66 acres and odd originally belonged to the Tanjore Palace estate. Subsequent to the decision of the Privy Council in the litigation which began with O.S. No. 3 of 1919 on the file of the District Court, Tanjore, various claimants got possession of portions of that estate. The subject- matter of this dispute as well as other properties were mortgaged by an executor of one of the claimants to a Yagappa Nadar and two others in 1932 for a sum of Rs. 30,000. The entire mortgage right subsequently vested in Yagappa Nadar and he thereby became the sole mortgagee. The equity of redemption in these and other properties was purchased by C.P.W. 1 on 14 July 1945, who discharged the mortgage in favour of Yagappa Nadar and claimed to have got possession of these lands. C.P.W. 1 sold away these and other lands to the present petitioner who was the B party before the lower Court on 2nd July, 1946, and it is alleged that the possession which C.P.W. 1 had also passed to the petitioner. Disputes regarding the possession between the A party and C.P.W. 1 had already started even before the sale by C.P.W. 1 as a result of which on a report by the police the lower Court passed a preliminary order under Section 145 (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure on 3 August, 1946 and served the same on both the parties. The learned Additional First Class Magistrate, thereafter enquired into the question of possession very elaborately, considered the large body of oral and documentary evidence produced before him on behalf of both the A and the B parties, and finally he came to the conclusion that the B party, the petitioner, or Ms predecessors-in-title were never in possession. He adjudged that possession was with the A party and passed orders accordingly.

(3.) The A party consists of 34 tenants who allege that they have been cultivating these properties and have been in actual possession for a long time even, while the properties remained with the mortgagee. It is further contended that each of these 34 tenants was cultivating separate pieces of land, some of them a few acres, others less.