The judgment emphasizes the requirements for acquiring prescriptive easementary rights, the necessity of seeking a declaration for such rights, and the implications of non-impleadment of necessary parties.

( 1 ) THIS appeal has been preferred by the plaintiffs who had filed a suit in 1961 seeking a direction upon the defendants to close the pit or trenches dug up by them in-between their lands r. s. nos. 371/1 and 337/3 and also for restraining them from obstructing the plaintiffs from passing over those lands with their carts and catties. Though the suit was decreed by the trial court, but, the said judgment and decree has been reversed by the lower appellate court thereby dismissing the suit.

( 2 ) PLAINTIFF nos. 1 and 2 are the owners of r. s, No. 375 and plaintiff nos. 3 and 4 are the owners of r. s. nos. 376/a and 376. According to the plaintiffs there is a way marked as 'abcdefghi' as shown in the plaintiffs' sketch map which leads from sadalaga village to the land of the plaintiffs. The said way as per the map passes through 27 survey numbers including survey nos. 371/1 and 377/3 owned by the defendants. Admittedly, only a part of the claimed way lying between the points g and h passes through the lands owned by the defendants. The owners of other survey numbers over which the said way is claimed to be passing have not been impleaded in the present suit. According to the plaintiffs they have been using the said way since the time of their grandfather and therefore they have acquired easementary right by prescription under Section 15 of the Indian easements Act, 1882 (hereinafter the act only ). Keeping in view the pleadings of the parties and the evidence adduced, the trial court decreed the suit but the same has been reversed by the lower appellate court.

( 3 ) THE following points were formulated by the lower appellate court for consideration:"1. Whether plaintiffs have acquired an easement by prescription from points g to h in-between survey nos. 371/1 and 377/3?2. Whether suit for bare injunction is maintainable without seeking declaration for easementary right?3. Whether la. Iii for amendment of the plaint should be allowed?

( 4 ) TO what order?" point No. 1 has been answered against the plaintiffs by holding that in view of Section 16 of the Act, the plaintiffs cannot be said to have acquired absolute prescriptive easementary right because the first defendant was in possession of the land as a tenant since 1960 when he purchased the said land becoming owner thereby. Therefore according to the court below, for computing the prescriptive period, the period during which the said defendant was having an interest only as a tenant has to be excluded and on such exclusion the period remains to be only 16 years. So far as the second question is concerned it has been held in one of the decisions of this court in the case of ramanatha gupta, d. V s. Razaack, that the right of easement by prescription cannot become absolute unless the right has been contested in a suit, and the suit for mere injunction is not maintainable if the injunction sought is based on a claim of easementary right unless that right is established in a suit. Paragraph 11 of the said judgment reads as under:" 11. It is, therefore, necessary that in a suit for injunction based on a prescriptive easement right, the plaintiff should seek for a declaration from the court that he has so acquired the prescriptive right of easement. In the present suit, however, the plaintiff has not sought for declaration that he has acquired prescriptive right of easement with regard to the inflow of Air and light through the windows and ventilator. Without more, therefore, the suit is liable to be dismissed. The courts below have obviously missed this legal aspect". coining to the question of permitting the amendment the same has been rejected inter alia on the ground that the owners of survey numbers through which the sketch of the way marked as 'abcdefghi' passes have not been impleaded as parties in the present suit and in the absence of those persons, the right of easement as claimed over their lands cannot be adjudicated. Moreover, so far as those persons