The legal principle established was that statements in documents must be carefully interpreted, and the scope of remedies under the CPC and the Indian Limitation Act must be considered in property dispute cases.

JUDGMENT

Khundkar, J. - This appeal which is by the Defendants arises out of a suit for declaration of title and recovery of possession. The facts briefly stated, are as follows: A certain revenue-paying property was mortgaged to one Sasanka Sekhar Choudhury, father of the Plaintiff. After his death, his executors instituted a suit for enforcement of the mortgage, obtained a decree, purchased the property in execution sale, and were given what is called symbolical possession. The judgment-debtors who are the Defendants launched proceedings under Or. 21, r. 90 of the CPC to set aside the sale. During the pendency of these proceedings, there were some negotiations for a compromise which, however, fell through. Though the parties did not come to terms, a document was somehow filed with the record of the execution proceedings, which contained certain conditions which had been discussed but not agreed to by the parties. The signature of one of the executors who were the Plaintiffs in the mortgage suit found a place in this document which is Exhibit E in the present case. Exhibit E contained a statement which is sought to be interpreted as meaning that the Defendants' kutchery bari and the jote appurtenant thereto were the property of the Defendants' mother and not the property of their father. The application to set aside the sale was rejected. The Defendants appealed and this Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the statement in Exhibit E could not be utilised for the purpose of showing that the land on which the kutchery bari stood was not the property of the Defendants' father. The land in dispute is plot No. 420 and the Defendants being still in possession, the Plaintiff filed the present suit on the 17th April, 1939. One contention of the defence was that plot No. 420 was a jote of the Defendants' mother held under the superior zemindary interest of the Defendants' father and that, therefore, it was property which did not pass in the mortgage sale of the superior interest. This contention was negatived by both the Courts below.

2. Two points only have been taken in this appeal. It is argued, firstly, that on a proper construction of Exhibit E, there is an admission by one of the executors of the Plaintiffs' father's estate which is binding on the Plaintiff to the effect that the land in dispute is the property of the Defendants' mother.

3. It is next urged that the Plaintiff's remedy for recovery of possession was by a proceeding under sec. 47 of the CPC and that this remedy was time-barred, the mortgage sale having taken place on the 17th April, 1930, in execution of which symbolical possession was delivered on the 3rd December, 1933, and was never followed by actual possession.

4. As regards the first of these contentions, it is clear from a reading of the judgments of the Courts below that no question of the construction of the document, Exhibit E, arises. The particular statement in this document upon which the Defendants sought to rely was said to have this effect that it showed that the kutchery bari stood on land which did not belong to the Defendants' father. The Courts below have considered with care all the material evidence which had any bearing upon this question. In so doing they have come to the conclusion that the presumption of correctness which attaches. to the record-of-rights has not been rebutted by the statement in question. The evidentiary value of this statement,-if indeed it was ever made,-is a question of fact, and it cannot be re-agitated now.

5. But Mr. Sanyal who appears for the Appellants has contended that the statement is binding on the Plaintiff as a promise would be, since it was made by one of the executors of his father's estate, and, because, it is contained in a draft of a compromise deed. With regard to this contention, it is sufficient to say that there is nothing to show how the name of the executor came to be written in this document. But there is also a further answer: Clause 7 in this