IBRAR KHAN and others vs SANAULLAH KHAN and others
This matter originated as a civil suit for possession of land, which was initially decreed by the Trial Court in favor of the plaintiffs-respondents. The Appellate Court subsequently set aside these decrees and dismissed the suits. Upon revision, the High Court restored the Trial Court's decrees, prompting the defendants to file petitions for leave to appeal before the Supreme Court. The core legal question concerned the validity of the defendants' contradictory pleas of ownership and adverse possession, and whether the plaintiffs had sufficiently established their title. The Supreme Court upheld the High Court's decision, finding that the defendants failed to satisfy the legal requirements for adverse possession under the Limitation Act. Furthermore, the Court affirmed that the plaintiffs had successfully proven their ownership through credible documentary evidence, including demarcation reports and official testimony from revenue officials. The Supreme Court concluded that the Appellate Court's judgment suffered from significant factual and legal infirmities, thereby justifying the High Court's intervention. Consequently, the petitions were dismissed, affirming the plaintiffs' right to possession based on established title and the failure of the defendants' adverse possession claim.
- Can a defendant simultaneously claim ownership and adverse possession over the same land?
- Does the failure to satisfy the conditions of Section 28 of the Limitation Act 1908 invalidate a claim of adverse possession?
- Is a High Court justified in setting aside an appellate judgment that suffers from factual and legal infirmities?
- Section 28, Limitation Act 1908
ORDER
' KHALIL-UR-REHMAN RAMDAY, J.--- The suits filed by the present respondents seeking possession of the suit land were decreed by the learned Trail Court vide separate judgments and decrees, dated 16-12-2000 which judgments and decrees were however set aside by the learned Appellate Court i.e, an Additional District Judge, at Mianwali as a result whereof, the said suits were dismissed. The said respondents then approached the learned High Court through Civil Revisions Nos.1666, 1667 and 1668 of 2001 which were allowed through the impugned judgment dated 7-2-2002 whereby the appellate judgments and decrees were set aside and the judgments and decrees passed by the Trial Court were restored.
2. Hence these petitions by the defendants-petitioners.
3. We have heard the learned counsel Advocate Supreme Court for the petitioners in Civil Petitions Nos.1502 to 1504-L of 2002 which arise out of the same consolidated judgment and have also examined the record in the light of the submissions made by him.
4. The reasons which weighed with the learned High Court in setting aside the appellate judgments and decrees were that the defendants had taken contradictory pleas i.e, a plea that they were the owners of the land in question and also that they were in adverse possession of the said land wherefor the plaintiffs could not be permitted, in law, to seek possession of the said land. The learned High Court found and rightly so, that the defendants had not been able to satisfy the conditions laid down by section 28 of the Limitation Act and further that even otherwise the said provision stood declared as un-Islamic. It had also been found that sufficient evidence had been led by the plaintiffs-respondents including the testimony of Patwari and the Tehsildar and the documentary evidence in the form of the report of the demarcation of the land in question dated 3-11-1990 (Exh.P-2), the report of the Tehsildar/ Local Commissioner, dated 15-5-1995 (Exh.P-4) that the land in question belonged to the plaintiffs-respondents. The learned High Court had also considered the effect of the oral testimony offered by the present petitioners at the trial and had rightly come to the conclusion that the appellate judgment suffered from factual and legal infirmities and thus could not be sustained.
5. Having thus examined all aspects of the matter we find that no exception could be taken to the impugned revisional judgment of the learned High Court. These petitions are therefore dismissed. .