- (1.)This is defendants second appeal against the concurrent findings of the Courts below.
(2.)The plaintiff's case was that he was the owner of the land bearing S. No. 216/2 measuring 15 acres and 25 guntas, of Tikota village in Bijapur Taluk. He is one of the three sons, Tavanappa and Appanna are his younger brothers. His father died in or about the year 1961; that he wa,s serving in the police department from 1937; that he purchased the suit schedule land out of his own earnings; that in about the year 1940 his father was in need of money and that he paid him Rs. 2000 as a result of which his father put him in possession of the land as an owner by giving a vardi to the revenue authorities; that no sale deed was executed in that behalf. The attempt of his father to contest the mutation entry of his name, did not succeed; that he had been in possession of the suit schedule properties exclusively and adversely to his brothers and his father and he had therefore perfected his title to the suit land even by adverse possession. It was his case that defendants 1 and 2 obtained an agreement of sale from his brothers on 24-3-62 and dispossessed the brothers of the plaintiff in the year 1964-65; that defendants were in illegal and unlawful possession of the suit schedule land and his brothers had no right to execute a sale agreement in respect of the suit schedule land. Therefore, he prayed for a declaration of his title and for being put in possession of the suit schedule land. In the alternative, he prayed that the suit schedule land should be treated as joint family property belonging to him and his brothers and he be given 1|3rd share and possession of the same holding that the agreement of sale in favour of defendants 1 and 2 was void.
(3.)Defendants 1 and 2 are the purchasers of the land under an agreement to sell and therefore the contesting defendants. Defendants 3 and 4, and 4A to 4D are none other than the brothers of the plaintiff and sons of defendant-4. Defendants 3 and 4 have remained ex-parte. Defendants 1 and 2 resisted the suit on the ground that it was not the self-acquired property of the plaintiff. Even if it was purchased by him for a consideration of Rs. 2,000 from his father, as no sale deed was executed he acquired no title; that he was never in possession of the land; that he was always out-side the village serving in the police Department; that defendants 3 and 4 had entered into an agreement of sale and put the defendants in possession of the land as intending purchasers; that defendants- 3 and 4 were competent to enter into the agreement of sale; that even before the sale, they were tenants of the land having been inducted thereon by defendants 3 and