Daulat Ram vs Chhaju Ram (Deceased) Represented by his L.Rs.

S.P. Goyal, J.

The appellant purchased the land in dispute in open auction from the Central Government under the sale certificate dated October 3, 1964. The said property was in possession of the defendant at that time and the plaintiff alleging him to be a tenant on a monthly rent of Rs. 15/ per month filed an application before the Rent Controller for his ejectment. The defendant denied his status as a tenant and claimed to be in possession as owner. Consequently, the plaintiff filed the present suit for possession of the suit property on the basis of ownership.

The suit was contested by the defendant who claimed to be the owner of the suit property on the basis of prescriptive right alleging that he was in its adverse possession for the last 3035 years. The trial Court negatived the plea of the defendant and decreed the suit. On appeal, the finding of the trial Court was reversed and the suit dismissed by the Additional District Judge, Gurgaon, vide judgment dated January 23, 1970. Aggrieved thereby, the plaintiff has come up in second appeal.

Their correctness of the judgment under appeal was primarily assailed on the ground that the period during which the property in dispute vested in the Central Government would not be available for counting the period for adverse possession of 12 years and in the alternative the plaintiff would be entitled to claim possession within 60 years, the period of limitation which was available to the Central Government for recovering possession from the defendant. None of the contentions raised by the learned counsel is tenable. No doubt in Koylashbashiny Dossee v. Gocoolmani Dossee, 1882 I.L.R. 8 Calcutta 230, it was observed that in the case of Government or any person claiming under Government, Article 149 of the Limitation Act provides the period of 60 years; and, it, therefore, follows that the Goverment or an auction purchaser claiming under the Government must sue within 60 years after the cause of action arises. But this view later on did not find favour as a contrary view was taken in Annada Mohan Roy Chowdhury v. Kina Das, AIR 1924 Calcutta 394, and it was held :

"Where a purchaser of land from Government sued to recover possession within 60 years, but more than 30 years from the commencement of adverse possession and within 12 years of purchase held that the suit was barred. Art. 144 applied and there was only 12 years'' limitation. Under Section 2(8) the period runs as against plaintiff''s predecessorintitle viz. the Government in the case, should be reckoned against plaintiff".

Similar view was expressed in Venkata Suryanarayana v. Venku Naidu, AIR 1926 Madras 1155; G.G. in Council v. Awadhoot, AIR 1946 Nagpur 228, and Jagjivan Singh and others v. Ahmad Bus and others, AIR 1971 Rajasthan 235. The position of law, therefore, appears to be wellsettled that a purchaser of an immovable property from the Government is not entitled to the benefit of a limitation of 60 years to recover its possession from a person holding adversely and that the latter would be entitled even to the benefit of the period during which the property remained vested in the Central Government. The contention raised, therefore, has no merit.

The learned counsel for the appellant then sought to challenge the finding of the learned Additional District Judge that the respondent had been in adverse possession of the suit property for more than 20 years. The challenge is not regarding the inference from the proved facts which would, of course, be a question of law. Instead, the argument raised was that there was no satisfactory evidence on the record to hold that the defendant was in possession of the suit property for more than 20 years on the date of the suit. To substantiate this argument, the learned counsel wanted me to go through the evidence and reappraise it. The finding that the defendant was in possession for more than 20 years is essentially a finding of fact and howsoever grossly erroneous the finding may be, it is not open to me to interfere with it by reappraisal of the evidence. As no legal infirmity in arriving at the finding has been pointed out, it is binding and is not open to challenge in second appeal.

In the result, this appeal fails and the same is hereby dismissed with no order as to costs.