BASDEO PANDE Vs. MOHAN PANDE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a plaintiff's appeal arising out of a suit for declaration of title and in the alternative for a decree for joint possession to the extent of a two-thirds share in plot No. 939.

(2.) The plaintiff's allegations in the plaint were that this plot appertained to a 3- pie share which had belonged to the plaintiff under some sort of a private partition and a one-third share which had been subsequently sold to the defendant, that Kuber dhobi was the occupancy tenant of this plot and that he left the village and vacated the land. After he had gone away both the plaintiff and the defendant took joint possession of it and had shown crops in it in the Kharif of 1329 F. and that the defendant had without the plaintiff's knowledge got his name alone entered in the patwari's papers on the strength of which he has Since been denying the Plaintiff's title.

(3.) There were a number of pleas taken in the written statement one of which was that the s"it was not cognizable by the Civil Court at all. The Court of first instance found that Kuber dhobi had not surrendered the field to the defendant alone but that he had simply left the village and after he had left the parties began to cultivate it jointly and the defendant has been cultivating it for only three or four years. The Court of first instance granted the plaintiff a decree for joint possession. On appeal the learned District Judge, without disagreeing with any of the findings of fact arrived at by the Court of first instance, came to the conclusion that the suit was not maintainable in the Civil Court at all. He has accordingly dismissed the suit without going into the merits.