The main legal point established in the judgment is the necessity to plead adverse possession with certainty and prove it thoroughly, and the misapplication of legal principles by the lower courts in relying on patta proceedings and demarcation in resurvey.

1. Thesubstantial questions of law raised in the second appeal are:

"1. Whether the decree and judgment of the Court below are to be set aside for non-consideration of document produced on the side of the appellant viz., Ex.B.19 etc. and non-consideration of the Commissioner's evidence and report, and plan marked in the present suit and for relying upon the Commissioner's report rendered in a different suit which do not have a binding effect on the defendant-appellant?

2. When there is a boundary dispute, whether the Courts below are right in decreeing the suit on the question of title by adverse possession between two adjacent owners?

3. Whether the judgment of the appellate Court is vitiated as it failed to do its duty of final fact finding authority after considering the evidence produced and hence it is perverse?"

2. The first defendant in O.S.No.513 of 1980 on the file of the Principal District Munsif, Padmanabhapuram, is the appellant in the second appeal. The first respondent herein filed the suit for declaration of his title, possession and for injunction. Her case was as follows:

She was the owner of 11 cents in R.S.No.476/23, corresponding to old S.No.6466 at Lakshmipuram Village. She got it under the title deed, dt.3.4.1121 M.E. executed by her father. The property was surrounded by well defined old kasalas more than 70 years of age. The property had been in her possession and enjoyment. The defendants were the adjacent owners of S.No.476/17 which was on the western side of the plaint schedule property. They had no manner of right or possession over the plaint schedule property. The plaint schedule property was more than 4 lower in level than the property of the defendants. As the defendants attempted to encroach upon the suit property, and put up a new boundary, the suit was necessitated. The disputed property had been in the possession of the plaintiff and her ancestors for a long time. Her possession was of right, open and hostile to all others and so even if the defendants or their predecessors-in-interest had any right in the remote past, it had been long lost by adverse possession of the plaintiff from 3.4.1121 M.E.

3. The first defendant alone contested the suit. The other defendants remained ex parte. The plaintiff was not entitled to 11 cents in Old S.No.6466 corresponding to R.S.Nos.476/17 and 476/23. The gift deed, dt.3.4.1121 M.E. for 14 cents was obviously wrong. There were no such separating boundaries as alleged in the plaint. The plaintiff did not rely upon any other source of title to the suit property. Patta was wrongly issued in resurvey for the whole of R.S.No.476/23 by altering the original settlement. The great grand-father of the plaintiff and the first defendant was in enjoyment of the property long prior to the last settlement. He sold a portion of the suit property to his son Vydhianathan, the grand father of the plaintiff, on 8.2.1068 M.E. describing the portion conveyed as the eastern half of the middle one-third of the southern half of Lekkom 134. The Lekkom was wrongly stated. On the same date the said Devasahayam sold the remaining western half to Meyyal and his brothers. After the death of Vydhianathan, his right was inherited by his only son Manuvel, who gave a gift of his property to the plaintiff. The gift deed in favour of the plaintiff was valid and effective only in respect of the eastern one half of old S.No.6466. The first defendant and his brother Pathrose filed a suit O.S.No.139 of 1976 for partition of the western one half against the other sharers, and others who were defendants 2 to 9 in the present suit. The suit was decreed and after the preliminary decree, the first defendant purchased the remaining shares from the sharers. Thus, the first defendant became entitled to the whole of western half of S.No.6466, which now consisted of R.S.No.476/17 and the suit property. Defendants 8 and 9 had no right to any portion of the S.No.6466. The suit was barred by limi