Smt. Bhagwati Devi vs Radhey Shyam and Others

Satish Chandra, J.—The question was whether the Civil or revenue court had jurisdiction to entertain the present suit? The suit was for possession of a Kotha and a Sahen situate on an agricultural plot of land in village Ashodha, district Meerut. The Plaintiff claimed that he was Bhumidhar of the plot on which the constructions stood, that he had made the constructions, but was illegally dispossessed therefrom by the Defendants. He prayed for possession over the constructions.

The trial court repelled the preliminary objection that the suit was pot maintainable in the civil court. The Defendants went up in revision before the District Judge. He held that the land in suit was agricultural, that it had not been demarcated as non-agricultural land u/s 143 of the Zamindari Abolition Act and so it will not loose the character of being an agricultural land to which Section 209 of the Act was applicable. The suit was not cognizable by the Civil Court. He directed the return of the plaint for presentation to the proper court. Aggrieved, the Plaintiff has come to this Court in revision.

Section 3(14) of the Zamindari Abolition Act defines ''land'' to mean (Except in Sections 109, 143 and 144 and Chapter III) land held or occupied for purposes connected with agriculture, horticulture or animal husbandary which includes pissiculture and poultry farming. Section 143 applies to use of land for industrial or residential purposes. The land so used can become non-agricultural and case being governed by Ch. VII of the Zamindari Abolition Act if appropriate proceedings are taken under it and the Assistant Collector incharge of the Sub-Division makes a declaration to that effect. Chapter VII includes Section 209 which provides for a suit in the Revenue Court for ejectment from land. So, before a land could be non-agricultural so as to be outside the purview of Section 209, it must be subject of a declaration u/s 143(1). Else, the mere user of land for non-agricultural purposes would not: preclude the applicability of Chapter VII including Section 209. In the present case no declaration u/s 143(1) was sought for by the Plaintiff or granted. Consequently, the land was covered by the definition contained in Section 3(14) of the Zamindari Abolition Act and was within purview of Section 209. In that event Section 331(1) of the Act would come into play and no Court other than the Revenue Court mentioned in column 4 of Schedule II could take cognizance of any suit mentioned in column 3 thereof. The suit was for possession covered by Section 209 of the Zamindari Abolition Act and as such could not be entertained by the Civil Court.

It was then urged that the suit did not relate to possession of land, but only of the constructions built by the Plaintiff of which he had been illegally dispossessed. The constructions were not in the air; they were embedded in the earth, and they pass with the land. When the Plaintiff was dispossessed from the constructions, he will be deemed to have been dispossessed from their site as well. The relief for possession over the Kotha and Sahen could be effectively given only after dispossessing the Defendant from the site and giving possession of the site to the Plaintiff along with the construction. The present suit was, in law, for possession over land with its construction. It lay in the Revenue Court.

In the result the revision fails and is accordingly dismissed with costs.