NAWAB MUHAMMAD AMANULLA KHAN Vs. BADAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Plaintiff's in this suit are descendants of one Lutuffulla Sadik, who held the laud which was the subject of the suit as Mafi. The earliest sanad appears to have been, as far as the evidence shows, a grant by one Afiz Khan in the sixth, year of the reign of the King of Delhi. It is not material when the title commenced. This Mafi was resumed in 1807, and at that time the ancestors of the Plaintiffs, who had the Mafi, were offered an engagement for the land revenue. They on the 5th of April, 1838, declined to take the land and engage for payment of the revenue. Then the Defendants, who are called in the judgments of the lower courts the lambardars, and were the representatives of the villagers, and held a large quantity of land in the village, undoubtedly as proprietors, were asked if they would take up the engagement. They appear, in the first: instance, to have declined to do so, alleging that they had got a settlement which included this land. However, it was found that this was not correct, and for a time the settlement operations were discontinued, and the Government appears to have held the land as khas. In 1842. a settlement was made, and than an engagement was made with the lamberdars, or representatives of the villagers, for the whole of the village, including the land which is the subject of this suit, and making no distinction between the way in which this land and the other land, of which the villagers were undoubted proprietors, was to be held. That settlement was to last for thirty years, and would expire in 1872. Steps do not appear to have been taken immediately upon the expiration; but, on a revision of settlement in 1879, the, Plaintiffs applied for what they called a concelment of the farm to the Defendants, and to have possession of the land as their ancestral estate. The Defendants refused to surrender the land, and consequently the Plaintiffs were referred to the Civil Court, and then the present suit was brought.

(2.) TWO questions were raised in the suit. One was, whether the Plaintiffs-or rather their ancestors-were the proprietors of the land as they alleged; and the other was whether the suit was barred by the law of limitation.

(3.) THE question which has now to be determined is whether the suit is barred by the law of limitation. The Chief Court, upon the further appeal from the decision of the Commissioner, has held that it is barred. The Act applicable to the case is Act XV. of 1877, and the article is No. 142, which says that for possession of immoveable property when the Plaintiff, while in possession of the property, had been dispossessed, or has discontinued the possession, the time from which the period allowed for bringing the suit begins to run is the date of the dispossession or discontinuance. It appears to their Lordships to be clear that when there was this refusal on the part of the Plaintiffs, or their ancestors, to make the engagement for the payment of the revenue, and the Government made the engagement with the villagers- the Defendants-there was a dispossession or a discontinuance of possession of the Plaintiffs within the meaning of this article.