Raja Gope and Others vs Sukan Singh and Another

Agarwala, J.—This application arises out of a dispute regarding possession of immovable property in respect of which an order has been passed u/s 145, Criminal P.C., declaring that the first party, the land, lords, are in possession, and restraining the second party, the tenants, from, interfering with the possession of the landlords. It appears that the land in dispute consisted of tan plots appertaining to khata No. 84 at village Sawanpur. Notices u/s 145 were issued to the interested tenants and they filed written statements, each of them specifying which plots he claimed. The Magistrate has found that the land, as already stated, is in the possession of the landlords.

The first ground on which that, order ii challenged is that the claims of a number of tenants in respect of different plots of land should not have been amalgamated in one proceeding u/s 145. Relianee was placed on a decision of Rowland J. in Ram Kishun Singh v. Faujdar Gope A.I.R (1937) Pat. 413. The facts of that case however were very different from the facts of the present case. There a large area of land, in 21 different khatas with 16 tenancies which were put up for sale by the landlord in a number of rent sales and purchased by him and of which the tenants claimed to be in possession was concerned.

The tenants did not file any written statement and there was nothing on the record to indicate which of the plots each of the tenants claimed to be in possession of. The Magistrate treated the proceeding as if the lands were claimed by all the tenants jointly, but there was no evidence in the case that they were jointly entitled to the lands, or in fact, that they claimed to be jointly entitled to the lands.

The Magistrate, nevertheless, passed an order in favour of the tenants. Rowland J. pointed out that this order had resulted in the absurdity of a dead man being found to be in possession of one plot and a person who disclaimed possession of another plot being found to be in possession of it. In the present case the tenants in their written statements specified the particular plots of which each of them claimed possession, and there could be no objection from anybody as to that matter.

The learned Magistrate gave his reason for disbelieving the second party: in specifying the lands they have made conflicting claims which indicated that they themselves did not know what lands they were claiming. In Gulab Kuer v. Ganouri Koeri A.I.R (1938) Pat. 511 Mohd. Noor J. pointed out that it was not necessarily illegal or irregular to combine a large number of plots in a proceeding u/s 145 Where the dispute is between a landlord who claims a large number of plots on one side and different sets of tenants who claim different plots on the other. His Lordship pointed out that when this is done particular care is required to ensure that the parties are not prejudiced by the amalgamation of a number of plots in one proceeding. There is no indication in the present proceeding that either party has been prejudiced by the procedure adopted.

The next point argued by the learned advocate for the second party petitioners was that at the time when the proceeding u/s 145 was initiated, the crops of 27 out of the 35 bighas of land in dispute had actually been harvested. He contended therefore that there could be too dispute between the parties with regard to the 27 bighas. The police report however was to the effect that the dispute was not only with regard to the crops but with regard to the land, and the learned Magistrate who drew up the proceeding was satisfied that there was a dispute with regard to the land which was likely to cause a breach of the peace. There is no substance in this point.

Lastly, it was contended that the opposite party consisted only of some of the cosharer landlords and that the others had not been impleaded. The learned advocate contended that this rendered the proceedings in the Courts below illegal. The authority for this proposition is a decision in Anesh Mollah v. Ejaharuddi Mollah (1901) 28 Cal. 446 which was not a case in which some of several cosharers only had been impleaded in the proceeding but a case in which there were different sets of landlords and some of these distinct sets were not parties to the proceeding. That case is quite different from the present and has no bearing on the question. In a case of cosharer landlords possession of one is the possession of all and one set is capable of representing the entire body in a proceeding u/s 145, Criminal P.C.

There is no substance in this application which must be dismissed.