BALKISANSINGH Vs. GOVINDSINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal arises out of a suit brought by the appellants against the respondent for a declaration that they are the owners of the 8 annas malguzari share which was recorded in the mutation register in the name of the respondent during their minority. In short, the suit was for a declaration that defendant-respondent does not own and possess the 8-annas share which stands mutated in his name.

(2.) THE defendant pleaded that he is entitled to the 8-annas share in the two mouzas and has been rightly recorded as a cosharer, that the suit is not maintainable and that the same is barred by limitation in view of the fact that the Settlement Officer and revenue officers had rejected plaintiffs' application for removal of the defendant's name from the record more than six years prior to suit. The Court below held that the suit was barred by limitation under Article 120, Lim. Act, and that, even assuming that the suit was within time, it would decline to grant a declaration which would have the effect of cancelling the entry in the settlement record of 1917. The prayer for the amendment of the plaint was also rejected. Hence this appeal.

(3.) I gave the plaintiffs-appellants are opportunity to produce that letter before, me, and called upon the defendant-respondent to admit the same. He has admitted it, but at the same time ventured an explanation as to the circumstances under which, he wrote it, or made the so-called admission of plaintiffs' title to the 8-annas share of the two villages, being subsisting in 1922. Had the Subordinate Judge taken the least care to look into the contents of this letter and scrutinized them, he would certainly have, found in it a very substantial admission-of a subsisting title which would necessarily have shifted the onus of proof on the defendant to explain it away by showing that it was erroneous in point of fact. It is, however, argued on behalf of the respondent that if the document-served such a purpose, it would make the-suit, if not barred by limitation, at least unmaintainable. I fail to see the correctness of this argument; because, after, a cause of action has arisen, if the plaintiff's title is admitted by his opponent in clear terms the admission operates to keep their right of suit alive and in time, and cannot destroy the same. A cause of action thus does not disappear by the admission which the plaintiff's opponent makes, while the right of suit continues in existence.