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1981 DIGILAW 350 (ALL)

Jhagaru v. Sita Ram

1981-03-10

V.K.MEHROTRA

body1981
JUDGMENT V.K. Mehrotra, J. - This is a defendant's second appeal. Plaintiff-respondent Sita Ram filed the suit inter alia with the allegations that the defendant had illegally raised construction denoted by letters QRST in the map (39 Ka-2) forming part of the trial court decree over land which belonged to him and was his sehan. The defence that was taken by the present appellant, amongst others, was that no part of the land over which the construction stood belonged to the plaintiff. The land, according to the defendant, was part of his sehan. 2. On the aforesaid pleadings, necessary issues were framed and the parties led evidence in support of their respective cases. The trial court, on consideration of the evidence on record, came to the conclusion that part of the land over which stood the offending constructions belonged to defendant Jhagaroo. This portion according to the trial court lay to the east of a dotted line X-Z drawn by it in the map aforesaid. The remaining land to the west of this land, according to the trial court, belonged to the plaintiff. The suit was decreed in part and the plaintiff was held entitled to get the offending construction lying to the west of line X-Z removed. 3. The plaintiff as also the defendant aggrieved by the trial court decree. Both of them assailed it in two separate appeals. These appeals were heard together and decided by the lower appellate court by a common judgment. The lower appellate court, on reconsideration of the evidence on record, came to the conclusion that even the land lying to the east to the dotted line X-Z belonged to the plaintiff. On this conclusion, it dismissed the defendant's appeal and allowed that filed by the plaintiff. The result was that the suit of the plaintiff stood decreed for removal of the entire construction denoted by letters QRST in the map forming part of the decree. The defendants now approached this court in the present second appeal. 4. The submission on behalf of the defendant-appellant is that the lower appellate court erred in placing the burden, as it were, of disproving the plaintiff case upon the defendant and further that it had not correctly approached the case having regard to the principle governing applicability of Section 9 of U.P. Act No. 1 of 1951 upon which the plaintiff had based his claim. As noticed above, the plaintiff as also the defendant-appellant were claiming the land covered by the disputed constructions to be theirs. Both the parties led their evidence about their case. In these circumstances, the question of burden clearly lost its importance. The lower appellate court, as noticed above, on its view of the evidence on record concluded that the plaintiff had succeeded in establishing that the land covered by the offending constructions made by the defendant belonged to him. 5. Coming now to second submission, it has to be noticed that the real controversy between the parties was as to whether the plaintiff or the defendant-appellant, was in possession of the land covered by the offending construction and was using it as his sehan. The finding that has been recorded on this question by the lower appellate court is that having regard to the evidence on record, the plaintiff has been found to have established the case set up by him. No particular principle which may be said to have been breached by the lower appellate court in its evaluation of the evidence on record, has been pointed out to me. 6. The case merited on pure appreciation of the evidence on record. It has been done by the two courts below who have, as seen earlier, differed in certain aspect. The findings recorded by the lower appellate court which is the last court of facts, are not shown to be vitiated by any such error of law upon which it is permissible for this court to interfere with it while hearing an appeal under Section 100 C.P.C. 7. In consequence, the appeal lacks merit which is dismissed but, in the circumstances of the case, without any order as to costs.