Jagdish vs Baburam

K.K. Trivedi, J.—Heard on the question of admission. This second appeal u/s 100 of the CPC is directed against the judgment and decree dated 30.01.2013 passed in Civil Appeal No. 19-A/2012 by the Additional District Judge, Pawai, District Panna, arising out of judgment and decree dated 01.12.2007 passed in Civil Suit No. 12-A/2006 by the Civil Judge, Class-II, Pawai, District Panna.

The appellant/plaintiff filed a suit seeking declaration that a sale-deed said to be executed in favour of the respondents/defendants on 12.09.1995 was null and void and not binding on the appellant. A permanent injunction restraining the respondents/defendants to interfere in the possession of the land in suit was also claimed. It was contended that the land was originally belonging to the appellant and was owned by his ancestors. He was cultivating the said land. Without any notice to the appellant, the name of the respondents/defendants was mutated on the said land, which fact came to the notice of the appellant in the year 2003 when he made the application before the revenue authorities and could know that on the basis of sale-deed dated 12.09.1995, the names of respondents/defendants were mutated on the land in suit. The complaint made by the appellant before the revenue authority was rejected, therefore, the suit was required to be filed. Such a claim made by the appellant was contested by the respondents/defendants on the plea that the sale-deed dated 12.09.1995 was rightly executed in favour of the respondents/defendants and ever since they were in possession of the said property. The application for mutation was made on the strength of such a sale-deed and names of the respondents/defendants were mutated in the revenue records in respect of the land in suit. Thus, it was contended that no decree, as claimed, was to be granted in favour of the appellant.

The Trial Court framed the issues, recorded the evidence and dismissed the suit of the appellant holding that he has failed to prove that the sale-deed dated 12.09.1995 was a forged document. Being aggrieved by the judgment and decree of the Civil Court, the appellant preferred a first appeal before the lower Appellate Court, which after marshalling the evidence available on record, reached to the conclusion that no error was committed by the Civil Court in rejecting the claim of the appellant and dismissed the appeal. Hence this second appeal is required to be filed.

Learned Counsel for the appellant contended that it was necessary on the part of the Courts below to see that genuineness of the registered sale-deed was to be proved by the respondents/defendants but erroneously burden was shifted on the appellant and in view of this, entire findings have been given as if appellant was to prove that the sale-deed was not genuinely executed. It is contended that if the thumb impression on the sale-deed was denied by the appellant, it was the responsibility of the respondents/defendants to prove that such thumb impressions on the disputed document (Exhibit P-1) were of the appellant.

Such contentions raised by learned Counsel for the appellant are totally misconceived. It is the settled provision of law that contents of the registered document are not required to be proved by anybody, who is claiming the execution of such a document, in case the registration itself is proved. The respondents/defendants have called up the witnesses from the Registrar office in respect of the registration of the document (Exhibit P-1), sale-deed dated 12.09.1995. The appellant/plaintiff had denied his thumb impression over the said document, therefore, the burden was on the appellant to prove that such thumb impressions made on the document Exhibit P-1 were not of the appellant. Further the Courts below have got the said thumb impressions verified from the admitted documents of the appellant. These comparisons done by the two Courts below indicate that there was no dispute with respect to the thumb impression of the appellant on the document Exhibit P-1. Secondly, the appellant himself has admitted in his cross-examination that the respondents/defendants were cultivating the land for 10 to 12 years in the past. If the land was belonging to the appellant, how the respondents/defendant were permitted to cultivate the same, was not set out in the plaint or in the statement made before the Court by the appellant. This is enough to indicate that in fact the sale-deed was executed by the appellant in favour of the respondents/defendants and after sometime, he started raising doubt about the said sale-deed. The reliance placed by learned Counsel for the appellant in the case of 89 Ind. Cas. 649 (Privy Council) , is wholly misconceived in view of the fact that the appellant himself has admitted the possession of the respondents/defendants on the suit land for the last 10-12 years in his court statement. No other evidence was produced by the appellant to show that the document Exhibit P-1 was not executed by him at any point of time. That being so, the findings recorded by the two Courts below cannot be said to be perverse. No error of law is committed by the Courts below in rejecting the claim of the appellant. No substantial questions of law arises for consideration in this appeal, which fails and is hereby dismissed.