Latest News
Back
Document:
SC: 'The Plea of Title and Adverse Possession Should be Recognised From the Very Date'
The Supreme Court of India by bench of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Ajay Rastogi and Aniruddha Bose observed that the plea of title and adverse possession cannot be advance simultaneously and from the same date.
Plaintiff stated that he and his late brother were full and absolute owners of agricultural land and sought a direction to remve the temporary structure put up by the defendant on the schedule property. It is stated by the defendant that the said property was sold by his brother to his wife.
However, the sale deed was not registered because of prohibition on registration of piece of land. Further, the wife of defendant has also got the prescriptive right of ownership over the said site property by way od adverse possession. For the same Trial Court dismissed the suit the plaintiff then approached High Court.
The HC decreed the suit on the ground that the original defendant had not been able to establish the plea of adverse possession.
Later SC agreeing with HC’s view observed that the claim of title from 1976 and the plea of adverse possession from 1976 cannot simultaneously hold. On the failure to establish the plea of title, it was necessary to prove as to from which date did the possession of the wife of the defendant amount to a hostile possession in a peaceful, open and continuous manner.
Supreme Court stated that,
“We fail to appreciate how, on the one hand the appellants claimed that the wife of the original defendant, appellant 1 herein, had title to the property in 1976 but on their failure to establish title, in the alternative, the plea of adverse possession should be recognised from the very date.”
The possession has to be in public and to the knowledge of the true owner as adverse, and this is necessary as a plea of adverse possession seeks to defeat the rights of the true owner. Thus, the law would not be readily accepting of such a case unless a clear and cogent basis has been made out(M. Siddiq (Dead) Through LRs (Ram Janmabhumi Temple Case) v. Mahant Suresh Das & Ors.(supra)).
“In the facts of the present case, this fact has not at all been proved. The possession of Smt. Narasamma, the wife of the defendant, is stated to be on account of consideration paid. Assuming that the transaction did not fructify into a sale deed for whatever reason, still the date when such possession becomes adverse would have to be set out. Thus, the plea of adverse possession is lacking in all material particulars.”
The SC dismissed the appeal.
Case details,
Case no.: CIVIL APPEAL NO.2710 OF 2010
Case name: NARASAMMA vs. A. KRISHNAPPA (Dead)
Document:
