GOKAL Vs. HARIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This second appeal has arisen in the following circumstances. One Mt. Sobhan widow of Sidhu was the owner of the property in dispute which consists of a vacant site and a compound, at one time there was a house constructed on this property. In the year 1906 the plaintiff who was one of the collaterals of Sidhu purchased the aforesaid house from Mt. Sobhan with the consent of his own father Gurmukh, who was then alive and Hira, another collateral of Sidhu, who seems to have died without leaving any heirs. Moti, Haku and Bisakhi, three brothers of Gurmukh, father of the plaintiff, brought a suit for the usual declaration which was decreed in their favour on 7 February 1908. A declaratory decree was granted by the Court in favour of the plaintiffs to the effect that the sale by Mt. Sobhan in favour of Haria would not affect their reversionary rights after the vendor's death and that they would be entitled to recover possession of their share in the property after the widow's death without any payment. Mt. Sobhan died on 24th August 1922. The aforesaid Moti, Haku and Bisakhi did not bring any suit for possession of their Bhare of the property sold by the aforesaid Mt. Sobhan in favour of Haria within the time allowed by Punjab Act I [l] of 1920. On 2 April, 1946 Haria brought the suit which has given rise to the present second appeal impleading all the descendants of Dola, his own grandfather, who are the nearest collaterals of Sidhu at the present moment. Nihala, Labhu, Polu, Kirpu, Ramun and Raman, sons of Moti, were impleaded as defendant 3 to 8, Moti having died before the institution of the suit.

(2.) Similarly Bisakhi having died his sons Lalu and Gokal were impleaded as defendants 1 and 2. Haku appears to have died without leaving any child or any widow. The relief claimed in the suit was a perpetual in-junction restraining the defendants from inter-fering with the plaintiff's possession of the suit property and from preventing him from constructing houses thereon. The allegations of the plaintiff were that he had been in continuous possession of the suit property from the date of the sale in his favour, that Moti, Haku and Bisakhi or their legal representatives had lost their right to the property in dispute by reason of not having sued for possession of their share within the time allowed by law, and that when the house which originally stood on the site in dispute fell down about two months ago and ;he plaintiff began: to reconstruet the house, the defendants prevented him from doing so. The suit was resisted by defendants 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 3 and 10 on the pleas that the house had fallen Sown during the lifetime of Mt. Sobhan and the property in dispute had become a vacant site, that when they were about to bring a suit for possession after the death of the aforesaid Mt. Sobhan they were told by the plaintiff that it was unnecessary to do so because they had already got a decree and the property was only a vacant site which would be deemed to be in the joint possession of all the reversioners of Mt. Sobhan's husband. It was further alleged that they were assured by the plaintiff that they could get the site partitioned whenever they liked. It was also averred that the contesting defendants had been in joint possession of the suit site all along and, therefore, had not lost their right therein. On the pleadings of the parties the learned trial Judge framed the following issues: (1) Whether the plaintiff alone is entitled to the site in dispute? (2) What is the effect of the previous litigation on this suit 1 (3) Whether the plaintiff alone is in possession of the site in dispute and not the defendants 1 (4) Relief.

(3.) The learned trial Judge decided all the issues in the plaintiff's favour and decreed his claim. On appeal the learned Senior Sub-Judge affirmed the decision of the learned trial Judge Feeling: aggrieved from the decree of the learned Senior Sub-Judge, Gokal alone, out of the contesting defendants, has come up in second appeal to this Court.