Judgment

HEGDE, J.: The scope of Section 9 of the U. P. Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950. (U. P. Act 1 of 1951) (to be hereinafter referred to as the Act) comes up for decision in this appeal by certificate.

2. The facts relevant for deciding this appeal are no more in dispute. The respondents were ryots under the appellants in village Nagli Abdulla, a hamlet of village Machhra. The site of the building in dispute in this appeal had been taken by the father of the respondents from the appellant s ancestors over 6 years ago and thereafter the respondents put up some buildings on that site for their residential purposes. During the communal disturbances in 1947 they left the village temporarily as a measure of safety and took shelter with some of their relations in some other village at a distant place. They came back to their village in the year 1949 when the conditions improved. At that time they found the appellants occupying that site after putting up a cowshed on the site in which their residential buildings stood. Those residential buildings had been demolished and the site in question included as a part of the house of the appellants, As the appellants refused to d