ORDER :

1. Leave granted.

2. The legal representatives of defendant in a suit for recovery of possession and damages have preferred this appeal against the judgment and order dated 08.03.2016, as passed by the High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Bench at Nagpur in Second Appeal No. 275 of 2001.

3. The predecessor of the present respondents filed the suit for possession and damages (CS No. 189 of 1995) in the Court of Civil Judge (Senior Division), Akola against the predecessor of the present appellants, essentially with the claim that he (the plaintiff) had purchased the suit property from the defendant under a registered sale deed dated 01.10.1992 for a consideration of Rs. 27,500/-and the defendant had put the plaintiff in possession of the suit property. The plaintiff asserted that later on, the defendant put his lock over the property and thereafter inducted tenants therein; whereupon he filed a police complaint and then filed the present suit on 03.08.1995, seeking recovery of possession as also damages.

4. The defendant, while resisting the claim so made by the plaintiff, contended that he had never sold the property to the plaintiff; rather he had taken a loan of Rs. 27,500/-for