Judgement

S. K. DAS, J.: These are six appeals by the plaintiff Raja Rajinder Chand, the superior landlord (ala-malik) of Nedaun Jagir in the district of Kangra. He brought six suits in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Kangra for a declaration that he was the owner of all pine (chil-pinus Iongifolia) trees standing on the lands of the defendants within the said Jagir and for a permanent injuction restraining the latter from interfering with his rights of ownership and extraction of resin from the said trees. He also claimed specified sums as damages for the loss caused to him from the tapping of pine trees by different defendants from March 24, 1940, up to the date when suits were brought. The defendants, who are the adna maliks (inferior landlords), pleaded that they were the owners in possession of the lands on which trees stood, that the trees were their property, and that the plaintiff had no right to the trees nor had he ever exercised any right of possession over them.

2. Three questions arose for decision on the pleadings of the parties. The first question was - whether all pine trees standing on the land in suit were the property of the plaintiff, i.e., the present appe