Judgment

( 1 ) HEGDE, J. : The scope of S. 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 appellants 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