Alluri Venkatasuryanarayanaraju and Others vs Pakalapati Sundararamachandraraju

Chandrasekhar Aiyyar, J.—This is a revision directed against the order of the Additional First Class Magistrate, Rajahmundry, in M.C. No.

1 of 1946, holding that the property in dispute called Perugu Lanka was in the possession of the ""A"" party, namely, Pakalapati Sundara

Ramachandraraju, and that ""his possession shall continue"" until he is evicted therefrom in due course of law. There is a direction that the attachment

made on 24th April, 1946, be raised and that the "" A "" party should be put in possession of the land in dispute.

It is apparent from the order itself that the possession on which reliance has been placed by the Magistrate for coming to the conclusion that the

A"" party was in such possession, commenced only in February, 1946. This is what he says:

The indication of possession is, not the raising of bunds last year but the raising of bunds and the erection of cattle-shed this year in February,

1946.

The jurisdiction of Magistrate u/s 145 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was invoked by a report of the Circle Inspector of Police dated 23rd

February, 1946, and the report states that the cattle shed and the bunds which each party claims as having been brought into existence on the land

were only a week or ten days old. This statement of the Circle Inspector of Police is confirmed as correct by the Additional First Class Magistrate.

If this is the truth, then there is no gainsaying the fact that apparently there has been a scramble for possession between the two parties and that in

this scramble some kind of work here and some kind of work there might have been done by one side or the other to lend support to their pleas of

possession. Such posession of a fugitive, scrappy or recent character is not the possession that is contemplated under Sub-clause (4) of Section

145 as the possession which should be maintained by the Magistrate subject to the result of the decision of a civil Court. Neither side has effective

possession and under such circumstances the proper order to make was one u/s 146, namely, that the property be attached until a competent

Court determines the rights of the parties or determines who is the person entitled to possession. The order of the lower Court is hence set aside

and such an order will be substituted in its place. The first Class Magistrate is directed to appoint forthwith a receiver to take possession of the

property pending final adjudication on the rights of the parties in a civil Court.