JUDGMENT

1. This is a plaintiffs' appeal in a suit for a declaration that a grove was the property of the plaintiffs and if the plaintiffs were found by the Court not to be in possession for possession in the alternative.

2. The facts which led up to the present suit are that one Jagan Nath, who held a mortgage of the grove in question from the predecessors-in-interest of the defendants, purchased it at an auction sale on 23rd January 1911. On 15th May 1911 formal possession was delivered to Jagan Nath. It appears that the names of the defendants continued in the revenue records till 1922 when they were removed and that of Jagan Nath substituted. Jagan Nath sold the grove in suit to the plaintiffs on 23rd January 1924. The defence to the action was that Jagan Nath was never in actual physical possession of the grove and that the defendants had, after the auction sale, entered into an agreement, by which Jagan Nath had agreed to accept the sum of Rs. 600' in three years in full satisfaction of the decree and then release the property to the defendants. The defendants did not obtain a deed of reconveyance as they were afraid that their other creditors might attach the property in execu