Adverse possession must be proved for the entire statutory period and cannot be presumed from presumptions and probabilities.

JUDGMENT

1. This is an appeal aginst the judgment of the Disrict Judge Kurnool confirming the judgment of the District Munsiff Nandyal, in O.S. No. 148 of 1954.

2. The appellant herein is the second defendant, the State of Andhra Pradesh represented by the Collector Kurnool. The Plaintiff 1st respondent died during the pendency of this appeal and her L.Rs. have been brought on record. The suit had been laid by late Kattubadi Fakirubi for a declaration of her right to sites ABCD. and CDEF. measuring 12 ft × 7 ft. and 15 ft × 7 ft. respectively abutting her houses bearing Municipal Nos. 22/1 and 23/1 in the Nandyal Municipal area. She had also prayed for an alteration in the survey plan prepared for the Nandyal Muncipal area wherein the said extents had been shown as part of street No. 1 bearing S. No. 30. It was her ease that the demarcation by the survey officer was wrong and that she was the purchaser of the sites and the houses under a registered sale deed dated 18-5-1943, Ex A-1 and she had been in enjoyment of the sites in question. She erected a zinc sheet verandah over the site CDEF and was running a shop in it. She enclosed the site ABCD with ‘that ties’. It was her case that her predecessors in title were in possession of the sites for over 100 years. It was her further case that when the Municipality of Nandyal objected to her possession of these sites, she obtained decrees against the Municipality in O.S. 113 of 1950 on the file of the District munsiff Nandyal and O.S. 158 of 1952 on the file of the District Munsiff, Dhone, and so established her right against the municipality. It is seen that O.S. 158 of 1952 on the file of the District Munsiff Dhone, was originally filed as O.S. 231 of 1951 in the court of, the District Munsiff of Nandyal. The present suit was filed on 12-4-1954. The suit was contested on the pleas that the plaintiff had encroached on these sites which were part of public street No. 1 and that the decrees obtained against the Municipality did not bind the paramount owner, the State of Andhra Pradesh. The defendants put the plaintiff to strict proof of the enjoyment for more than the statutory period. The learned District Munsiff found that the sites formed part of ‘Gramanattam’ that the State was the paramount owner; but that the plaintiff had acquired title to the said sites by adverse possession. These findings were affirmed by the District Judge in appeal. The state has preferred this Second Appeal.

3. Two content ions have been urged before me for the Government, firstly, that a suit for alteration of the boundaries contemplated under Sec. 14 of the Madras Survey and Boundaries Act, 1923, (Act No. VIII of 1923) had to be instituted within three years from the date of the Notification under Sec. 13 and that inasmuch, as the notification after survey was issued, in March, 1933, as stated by the plaintiff herself in para 4 of the plaint, the suit instituted in 1954 was barred by time, and secondly, that the concurrent finding of the Courts below that the plaintiff had acquired title by adverse possession is not based on legal evidence but on presumptions and probabilities which do not form legal evidence to support that finding.

4. It is stated by the learned Government Pleader that the first was unfortunately not urged before the courts below; but that he could invite the attention of this court to the plea of the statutory bar as enacted under Sec. 14 of which the court shall take judicial notice.

5. Point 1:— Section 14 of the Madras Survey and Boundaries Act enacts in terms as under:

“Any person deeming himself aggrieved by the determination of any boundary under Section 9, 10 or 11, may subject to the provisions of parts II and III of the Indian Limitation Act, 1908 institute a suit within three years from the date of the notification under section 13 to set aside or modify the said determination and the survey shall, be altered in accordance with the final decree in the suit, and the alterati