High Court of Punjab and HaryanaRSA/2686/1994dismissed

Gurdev Kaur v. Om Parkash Etc.

2026-04-08Mr. Justice Sandeep Moudgil8 pages

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% % !- %. - % # " % The present Regular Second Appeal has been preferred by the appellant-defendant against the concurrent judgments and decrees passed by the learned Courts below , whereby the suit for possession instituted by the plaintiffs-respondents in respect of agricultural land measuring 1 Kanal 13 Marlas situated in the revenue estate of Nabha has been decreed in their favour. The undisputed factual matrix reveals that the plaintiffs, claiming themselves to be owners of the suit property on the basis of revenue

record, instituted the suit in the year 1986 seeking possession on the allegation that the defendant had illegally encroached upon the land and raised construction thereupon without any right or title. The defendant, while contesting the suit, set up a plea of having come into possession of the suit land as early as in the year 1976 and asserted that her possession was open, continuous and hostile to the knowledge of the true owners and had, thus, ripened into ownership by way of adverse possession. Reliance was also placed upon an earlier suit allegedly filed in the year 1979 by Tara Chand, brother of the plaintiffs, wherein it was stated that the defendant had encroached upon the land about three years prior thereto, to contend that her possession stood admitted since 1976. 2.

The learned trial Court, upon appreciation of oral as well as documentary evidence, including the jamabandi for the year 1981-82 and khasra girdawari entries produced by the plaintiffs, returned a finding that the plaintiffs had successfully proved their ownership over the suit land and that the defendant had failed to establish her plea of adverse possession, particularly in the absence of any cogent evidence indicating the exact date of commencement of possession or the hostile nature thereof, and consequently decreed the suit vide judgment dated 08.09.1989. The said findings came to be affirmed by the learned first appellate Court vide judgment dated 13.01.1994, which concurred with the trial Court in holding that the plea of adverse possession had not been proved in accordance with law and that the suit was not barred either by limitation or by the principle of res judicata.

Assailing the said concurrent findings, learned counsel for the appellant has contended that the Courts below have misread the evidence on record and have failed to appreciate the material admission arising from the earlier

& suit of 1979, which, according to him, clearly establishes that the defendant was in possession since 1976 and, therefore, by the time of institution of the present suit in 1986, her possession had matured into ownership by adverse possession. It has further been argued that the plaintiffs, being closely related to Tara Chand and having knowledge of the earlier litigation, were barred from instituting the present suit and that the findings recorded by the Courts below are perverse and liable to be set aside.

Per contra, learned counsel for the respondents has supported the impugned judgments and submitted that the plaintiffs are recorded owners of the suit land and the defendant is a rank trespasser who has failed to prove the essential ingredients of adverse possession, namely, the precise date of entry, continuity of possession for the statutory period and its hostile character, and that the concurrent findings of fact recorded by both Courts below do not call for interference in the limited jurisdiction of this Court under Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

Having heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record. ISSUE FOR DETERMINATION:

Whether any substantial question of law arises for consideration as to whether the concurrent findings recorded by the Courts below, rejecting the plea of adverse possession, suffer from perversity or misapplication of the settled principles of law governing adverse possession? ,!/ ! $ !

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However, it is a settled proposition of law that such a plea must be strictly proved by establishing the date of commencement of possession, its continuity and its hostile nature to the knowledge of the true owner. In the case in hand, the Appellant/defendant has failed to place on record any reliable evidence to establish the exact date from which her possession became adverse. A careful appraisal of the evidence on record reveals that the plaintiffs/respondents, along with their brothers, stand duly

' recorded as owners of the suit land in the jamabandi for the year 1980-81 (Ex. P1), whereas the appellant/defendant is reflected in possession merely as a Gair Marusi and that too bila lagan bawaja kabza. The khasra girdawari entries (Ex. P2, P9, P10 and P11 of the courts below ) further establish that prior to the year 1976, the land was in possession of Jagan Nath and it is only from the year 1976 that the defendant came to be recorded in possession, that too as an unauthorized occupant. These consistent revenue entries unmistakably demonstrate that the appellant/defendant's possession commenced only in the year 1976 and not earlier, as vaguely alleged by her.

In the absence of any cogent revenue record substantiating continuous and hostile possession for the statutory period of 12 years, the plea of adverse possession cannot be sustained. The appellant/defendant's self-serving statement in the witness box, wherein she inconsistently claimed possession for 35 to 40 years, is wholly unreliable and does not satisfy the legal requirements of adverse possession. Mere long possession without proof of its hostile character is insufficient to confer title. Thus, it stands conclusively established that at best the defendant was in possession for about a decade prior to the institution of the suit in 1986, which falls short of the statutory requirement.

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