MALKARJUNAPPA SIDRAMAPPA DESHMUKH Vs. ANANDRAO ANNARAO DESHMUKH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The dispute between the parties relates to a strip of land, two acres and thirty-three gunthas, shown in the map Ex. 66. Defendant No. 1-appellant was the owner of Survey No. 527, pot No. 3, and the plaintiff-respondent, the owner of Survey No. 527, pot No. 1. Both these pot numbers adjoin a public road. When the Government Surveyor witness Hari (Ex, 69) thought that respondent No. 1 cut off the trees on this road, he commenced an inquiry and incidentally in the course of that inquiry he was of opinion that the boundary marks between the pot Nos. 1 and 3 have been wrongly placed during all these years and that it was actually an old water-course in which case the strip now in dispute falling to the south of the watercourse would belong to the appellant and not, as it was so far thought, to respondent No. 1. In September it-21, the Deputy Collector held the respondent guilty of encroachment on the public road. In October 192], the respondent asked for a review of this order and that his land might be measured. That order on the part of the Deputy Collector remained. The appellant came to hear of it and hence this suit by respondent No. 1 for a declaration that the strip was of his ownership and not, as the authorities have now held, of the appellant s.

(2.) There is no question that in all the revenue records from 18S9 to 1920 this strip had been included in the respondent's pot No. 1 which was shown as measuring eleven acres and four gunthas and the assessment levied from him accordingly, while the appellant's land was shown as measuring two acres and thirty-three gunthas. Both the parties in suit had let their lands out for over twenty years to one and the same tenant. The boundary marks and the stones between them had not been very carefully preserved and only one such stone remained when the learned Subordinate Judge visited the scene. The tenant himself deposes that he had obtained possession of the strip in suit from the respondent and paid him rent on it. The respondent, therefore, relied both on title and on possession.

(3.) The appellant denied the respondent's title and possession and set up the order of the Collector as barring the jurisdiction of the Civil Court.