Possession is adverse when the occupant publicly asserts full ownership through actions like applying for title mutation or gifting the property, rather than claiming possession merely for maintenance. Such adverse possession bars recovery of the property after the statutory limitation period expires.

Viscount Haldane:-

This is an appeal from a judgment of the High Court of Allahabad, affirming the conclusion come to by the Subordinate Judge of Gorakhpur. The only question of substance is when time began to run under the Indian Limitation Act against a claim to recover possession made by the first respondent. The property in dispute was held by a Hindu lady called Dilla Kunwari. She died in 1895, and the controversy turns on whether her possession was that of one claiming adversely as against any other title, or whether, as the Courts below have held, that possession was not adverse but under licence from or by permission of the predecessors-in-title of the first respondent, a licence or permission granted during the lady's life-time, in order to afford her the maintenance which she claimed as a widow. In that case time did not begin to run against this claim until she died in 1895, and the Limitation Act has not operated so as to defeat this action.

It will be convenient, in order to make the situation of the parties intelligible, to set out the pedigree in a table :-

Chaudhri Sheo Shankar Lal (son) (first Chaudhri Satgur defendant, now deceased, in whose Prasad (son) place those claiming as his legal repre- (second defendant sentative were substituted.) and appellant).

It is not now in dispute that Bhawani and Basant, who appear in the pedigree, were at the time of the death of the former in 1851 joint, and that Basant became entitled to the entire family property, subject to such rights as Kishan and Dilla, Bhawani's widows, possessed. When Basant died in 1859, his widows, Raghubans and Jadubans, had similar rights, and subject to these, his sapindas, the male cousins and his reversioners, Hanuman and Hanwant, took the property. In 1861 Raghubans and Jadubans, the widows of Basant, both died, and it is of importance to see what happened then. The learned Subordinate Judge held that the two widows of Bhawani got possession of the estate in equal moieties. As will appear, the controversy is confined to the share held by Dilla, for as to the other half taken possession of by the other widow, Kishen, an independent title, under a deed of gift, as to which title there is no dispute in this appeal, became vested in her daughter, Jadunath, and was transmitted to the defendant. Jadunath took possession of this half in 1879 under the deed of gift. It is immaterial whether the deed was valid or not, so far as concerns what she took possession of in that year, for any claim of the respondent-plaintiff against her, has, as is not in dispute, become barred by limitation. The only question is as to what was held by her aunt, Dilla.

The period prescribed by the Indian Limitation Act, 1877 , Section 144 of Schedule II , as that within which a suit for possession has to be brought, is twelve years from the time when the possession of the defendant became adverse to the plaintiff. It is therefore obvious that if the possession of Dilla, after Basant's death, was really adverse, the respondent's claim fails. It is important to see what was the position of the lady after the death of her husband, Bhawani, in 1851. In November of that year, she and the other widow, Kishen, entered into a written agreement with Bhawani's brother, Basant, the terms of which were that the name of Basant as inheriting should be entered in the Government register in place of that of Bhawani, and that he should "pay the Government revenue, manage the ilaka (or property), and make collections and give expenses and clothes (and money) when required for charitable purposes," to Kishen and Dilla, that the messing should continue to be joint, and that both widows should exercise control over the servants and ilaka as heretofore. Their Lordships are of opinion that if this were all, it left the possession as a provisional arrangement undisturbed in Basant. All that the ladies were to do was to live as before on the property and be maintained there, without any occupation of