HAFEEZA BEGUM Vs. KHATIJA BEGUM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The instant Civil 1st Appeal is directed against the judgment and decree of Learned 1st Additional District Judge Srinagar dated 18th December 2009, whereby Learned Judge has dismissed the Appellants' suit as barred by limitation.

(2.) Put briefly, the Appellants case before the Trial Court was that the Appellant was owner of the suit property described in the plan, same having devolved on her by inheritance as also in consequence of a family Settlement Deed executed by her siblings/ other legal heirs of her father in her favour. The Appellant claimed that the Respondents who happen to be her collaterals and to have ' inherited a part of the property in question some time in 2003, entered and took over ! the suit property, when Appellant had gone Haj pilgrimage; that the Appellant on her return requested the Respondents to vacate the suit property but of no avail, the Appellant confronted with recalcitrance of Respondents was constrained to file a suit for possession of the suit property.

(3.) The Respondents in their written statement while admitting that the parties to the suit are descendants of one Gaffar Malik, and that the subject-matter/suit property was ancestral property of the parties, insisted that the Respondents were in exclusive possession of the suit property for last 20 years without any objection from the Appellants and that the Respondents possession had ripened into ownership. The Respondents pleaded that the suit was time barred and that the Respondents were under no legal obligation to vacate the suit property.