THONGKHODOU KUKI Vs. SELKHULAL KHONGJAI AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This defendant's second appeal is from the judgment and decree of the District Judge, Manipur in Civil Appeal No. 51 of 1972, allowing the appeal and setting aside the judgment and decree of the trial Court which dismissed the suit.

(2.) The respondent No. 1 Selkhulal Khongjai instituted original suit No. 67 of 1971 against the present appellant and the proforma-respondent for declaration of title and recovery of possession of the suit land on the basis that the suit land was settled in his favour by the allotment order No. ASSO/IE/7/SO dated 24.1.70 and he had paid the premium thereof. Where after his name was entered in the Jamabandi as its pattadar and he was in actual possession of the suit land from before the time of allotment and continued to possess the same thereafter until he was forcibly dispossessed by the defendants, who had no right or title to the suit land in the middle of May, 1971. The defendants contested the suit by filling a joint written statement wherein they denied inter Alia that the plaintiff was the owner of the suit land under patta No. 7/67(New); or that the plaintiff was in actual possession since before the allotment and continued to possess the same thereafter; or that the defendants and their men forcibly dispossessed the plaintiff from the suit land. They also averred inter Alia that the defendant No. 1 had reclaimed the suit land about 14 years earlier that since then he had been possessing the same without any interruption; that he submitted a number of applications to the concerned authorities for its allotment to him on the basis of his long possession being fully qualified to be an allottee under the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960, hereinafter referred to as "the Act" and the Rules framed thereunder, hereinafter referred to as "the Rules"; that the plaintiff was minor and this fact was admitted by the plaintiff as well as her mother in criminal case No. 29 of 1971 under sections 447 and 506 I.P.C. and he was shown to be a minor in his School Register and that as soon as the defendant No. 1 knew about the allotment of the suit land to the plaintiff he filed a Revenue Revision Case under section 95 of the Act for setting aside the allotment order on the ground that the plaintiff (allottee) was a minor student and non-agriculturist and hence the allotment order was illegal under the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms (Allotment of Land) Rules, 1962, hereinafter referred to as the "Allotment Rules" that right and title of the defendant No. 1. over the suit land had been perfected by adverse possession and that the plaintiff had no cause of action.

(3.) The trial Court settled as many as 11 issues of which the following may be extracted: