The main legal point established in the judgment is that a possessory owner can recover possession from any person, except the true owner, who dispossesses him, and is entitled to mesne profits and compensation for waste. The court also clarified the admissibility of subsequent title acquired after the suit was filed.

1. This appeal is by a plaintiff whose suit for possession, mesne profits, and compensation for waste has been dismissed as against the 1st and 2nd defendants and 75.76 acres out of the 131.23 acres of land in suit (the court below has found that the actual extent of the suit land is only 118.85 acres but the difference in area is of no consequence) and has been decreed only as against the remaining defendants, defendants 3 to 6, and the rest of the land. The plaintiff seeks a decree against the 1st defendant and the rest of the land as well the 2nd defendant is only a servant of the 1st defendant Society and has no independent title or possession.

2. The suit land is the plot marked L (0 in the plan Ext. L (prepared by the commissioners in some other proceeding, C. M. A. No. 206 of 1110 of the High Court of Travancore, and proved by one of them who was examined as pw.10 in this suit); L (i) (a) is the land in respect of which the suit has been decreed; and L (i) (b) is the land in respect of which it has been dismissed. Adjoining the suit land to the east is the land marked L (2) in Ext. L, the true area of which has been found by the lower court to be 172.38 acres but which has been referred to by the witnesses as the 160 acre land, that being the area given in some of the documents marked in the case. The suit land & the 160 acre land lie in Survey Numbers 780/1 & 780/2 of Ranni Village, very extensive survey fields together having an area of about 8000 acres. The entire land comprised in these two survey fields is admittedly forest poromboke belonging to the Government. But, admittedly again, the plaintiff was in possession of the suit land as also of the 160 acre land upto the end of the year 1114 M. E. (1938-39 A. D.), whether for over 70 years as alleged by the plaintiff, or only for a much shorter period as contended by the 1st defendant Society (the only contesting defendant) is a matter of no moment since the plaintiff claims only a possessory and not a prescriptive title. In the year 1100(1924-25) the Government initiated proceedings under the Travancore Land Conservancy Act, L. C. Case No. 112 of 1100, in respect of the plaintiff's unauthorised occupation Exts. AT, AT (i) and AT (2), copies of some of the proceedings in that case including a sketch of the land in question leave no room for doubt (both from the area mentioned, as also from the sketch which tallies exactly with plot L (2) in Ext. L) that the L. C. case was only in respect of the 160 acre land and was not in respect of the suit land. The plaintiff thereupon filed a suit, O. S. No. 156 of 1103, against the Government, and, by reason of a temporary injunction issued is that suit, it was not until 8121114 (24-7-1939) that the Government were able to complete the proceedings in the L. C. case and evict the plaintiff under the mahazar, Ext. AG, which, although it does not give the extent of the land from which the eviction was effected, clearly mentions that it was from the land in L. C. Case No. 112 of 1100 and therefore, on the face of it, could only have been from the 160 acre land. By Ext. BD dated 26121114 (11-8-1939) the 1st defendant Society (by its General Secretary who has been examined as dw.1) applied for a kuthakapattam (the term used for a lease of Government land) of the land from which the plaintiff had been evicted in L. C. Case No. 112 of 1100, mentioning the area of the land as 165 acres. The application was granted within a few days, and, although the kuthakapattam deed has not been produced, it is the admitted case that the lease was of the 160 acre land. Of this land, the 1st defendant was put in possession on 5-1-1115 (21-8-1939),10 days after it had made its application, Ext. BD, and, it is the plaintiff's case that on 30 21115 (16101939) the 1st defendant Society employing a large body of men for the purpose, invaded the suit property, assaulted and drove away the 21 families which the plaintiff had installed therein, and