Vesting in Government causes no discontinuity of adverse possession.

JUDGMENT.-The plaintiff, who failed in both the Courts below, is the appellant. He filed the suit for declaration of his title to the suit properties and recovery of possession thereof and a half share of the casuarina crop raised by the respondents on the suit properties alleged to have been leased to the 1st respondent or its value of Rs. 3,000.

2. The suit properties are 3 items of lands, viz., 1 acre 71 cents comprised in S. No. 97/1 said to correspond to Paimash No. 348/D forming item 1; 5 acres 50 cents of land comprised in S. No. 88/3 said to correspond to Paimash Nos. 221 and 365 forming item 2; and specific 13 acres 79 cents out of 44 acres 13 cents comprised in Paimash Nos.233, 250/A, 250/B, 251, 252/B, 253, 255/B, 257/A, 257/B, 257/C and 264 of Karun-gali Village, Ponneri Taluk, Chingleput District, which was originally a zamin estate and taken over by the Government on 3rd January, 1951 under the provisions of the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act XXVI of 1948.

3. The appellant is the son of one Tippu Saheb who died in or about November, 1930, and he claimed to have inherited the suit properties as the heir of his father said to have obtained patta No. 17 in respect of the lands under the provisions of Act XXVI of 1948. He alleged that he had leased out the lands to the first respondent in 1958 for raising casuarina on half waram basis and that the first respondent refused to give him his share of the crops in 1965 and took away the entire casuarina crop estimated at 150 tons. He impleaded the second respondent, the widow of the first respondent’s brother Vaidyalingam on the ground that she also put forward a claim to the suit properties.

4. The Suit properties and other properties admittedly belonged originally to Tippu Saheb. Those properties appear to have been brought to sale subsequent to the death of Tippu Saheb in execution of a decree obtained against him in-Small Cause Suit No. 19 of 1933 on the file of the District Munsif’s Court, Poonamallee, and sold to one Parthasarathi Mudaliar. The appellant’s wife Ghouse Bi and her brother Abdul Razack appear to have obtained reconveyance of the properties from the Court auction-purchaser Parthasarathi Mudaliar. Subsequently the first respondent obtained a sale in respect of a half share in those properties from Abdul Razack under Exhibit’ B-6 dated 18th November, 1944. Thereafter the appellant’s wife Ghouse Bi filed O.S. No. 103 of 1947 in the SubCourt, Chingleput, for a declaration that the sale of the half share of the properties by Abdul Razack (the third defendant in that suit) to the first respondent (the first defendant in that suit) was not valid and binding on her and that the first respondent was not entitled, to be in joint possession of the properties with her on the basis of that sale and also for recovery of Rs. 3,500 being the value of the casuarina alleged to have been cut and removed by the first respondent and Parthasarathi , Mudaliar. Exhibit A-10 is the copy of the plaint in that suit. The parties in that suit entered into a compromise (Exhibit B-1) and the compromise decree (Exhibit B-2) dated 12th August, 1949 had been passed in terms thereof, allotting certain properties to the first respondent. The properties had been described in the plaint’, Exhibit A-10, by survey numbers though the zamin estate had been taken over under the provisions of Act XXVI of 1948 only on 3rd January, 1951 and survey and settlement operations in respect of the estate could have commenced only thereafter. But, in the compromise petition and decree, Exhibits B-1 and B-2, the properties have been described only by paimash numbers.

5. The defence in the present suit was that the first respondent got the present suit properties in the compromise decree and has been in exclusive possession and enjoyment of the properties since the date of the compromise decree and had perfected his title by adverse possession. The respondents denied the lease set up

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