The burden of proof in injunction suits lies with the plaintiff to establish possession, and once established, interference with possession must be proven by the defendant. Evidence of possession from more than 15 years prior to the suit may not be sufficient to disprove current possession.

CHANDRAKANTARAL, J.

( 1 ) THIS is a defendants second appeal against the concurrent findings of the lower Appellate Court and the trial Court.

( 2 ) THE plaintiff presented original suit No. 279/84 in the Court of Munsiff at malu inter alia seeking a permanent injutcrion restraining the defendants from interfering with his peaceful possession of suit schedule property, on which, he was erecting a building and as the defendants interfered with such enjoyment of the property by interfering with the construction or laying of the foundation on the suit schedule property.

( 3 ) THE defendants denied those averments in the plaint and claimed that the suit schedule property was their property and that it was in their possession.

( 4 ) THE first defendant at the relevant time was the President of Ryoth Sangha while the third defendant was the Secretary. It was their case that in a public auction, the suit schedule property was purchased by the Sangha. That auction, it was alleged, was confirmed by the Assistant Commissioner of that Sub-Division. They further averred that the plaintiff was not in possession. In the light of such pleadings, the following issues were framed by the trial Court. (1) Does the plaintiff prove that he is in possession of the suit schedule property on the date of suit ? (2) Does the plaintiff prove that de fendants are interfering with his possession ? (3) Was he entitled to the injunction ?on such issues, he found in favour of the plaintiff. In support of the plaintiff's case, the plaintiff examined himself and got marked as many as 4 documents, they were, "hakkupatra, Licence to construct the house, spot mahazar and the endorsement, "marked as Exs. P. 1, P. 2, P. 3 and p. 4 respectively. As against that, the defendants got examined two witnesses, one Meer Dastagir and one S. M. Narayanappa. The trial Court has come to the conclusion that the oral evidence given by the plaintiff on oath was duly supported by the documents produced by him particularly, the endorsement issued by the special Deputy Commissioner in the year 1980. He has discarded the argument that failure to examine the workers, who dug the foundation as claimed by the plaintiff should have induced the Court to draw an inference that the petitioner was not in possession of the property.

( 5 ) SIMILARLY, he has discarded the evidence on behalf of the defendants inter alia on the ground, the oral and documentary evidence prove possession of the property upto to a point of time in the year 1969 and not thereafter. Therefore, he held in favour of the plaintiff and granted the injunction prayed for.

( 6 ) AGGRIEVED by the judgment anddecree of the trial Court as above, the defendants filed an appeal before the civil Judge at K. G. F. in Regular Appeal no. 3/1987.

( 7 ) THE learned Civil Judge, formulated the same points for his decision, which were the issues framed by the trial Court. He reiterated the reasoning of the trial Court. He came to the conclusion dw. 2 a mere labourer, who claimed to have dug the foundation in 1962 could not be believed and his evidence could not be relied upon. He also referred to the name board of the site, which was dated 22-3-1969 and therefore held, it had not relevance to the possession as on the date of the suit in 1984. He went into other aspects of the evidence and found that some of the defence documents could not be relied upon because certificate of confirmation of the auction was granted after the sale had come to be cancelled. Therefore, he affirmed the judgment and decree of the trial Court.

( 8 ) IN this Court, the only point urged by Mr. Ranganna, learned Counsel for the appellant is that the Courts below were not justified in refusing to accept the evidence adduced on behalf of the defendants. The thrust of his argument was that if there was possession in 1962 as evidenced by the testimoney of DW. 2 and in 1969 besides the name board of the Ryoth sangha, it should be inferred therefrom that they continued

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