JUDGMENT

Piggott, J. - This is one of those second appeals in which the only real difficulty is to ascertain with certainty what facts the lower Appellate Court intended to find, or must be taken to have found. The suit was one for recovery of possession over a certain plot of land and a tree situated thereon. If I rightly understand the pleadings there never was any question of title, strictly so called, in issue between the parties. The land in question is situated in the abadi, or inhabited site, of an agricultural village, and the proprietors of the1 soil are no doubt the zamindars of the village. The plaintiff alleged that he had been for many years in actual possession and occupation of the land in suit, having erected a thatched hut thereon and possessing the rest of the land, not actually covered by the suit, as a courtyard appertaining to the fame. He further alleged that, during his absence from the village, the defendants, without any sort of right or title, had demolished the hut which belonged to him and taken possession of the land and of the tree, erecting a shed of their own on some portion of the land. The defendants' reply was that the plaintiff had never been in possession, that they had never dispossessed him, but that on the contrary they themselves had been in possession and occupation of the land for many years. The first Court found that the plaintiff had failed to prove any title to the land in himself, and, upon this finding alone, dismissed the suit. One of the grounds expressly taken by the plaintiff then he appealed to the Court of the District Judge was that he was entitled to a decree on proof of the fact of his possession. At the hearing of the appeal by the District Judge, a question of procedure arose which has to some extent complicated the case. The defendants themselves in the Court of first instance had pleaded that the land in suit had, many years previously, been occupied by the residential house of a tenant named Reoti. They alleged that the said Reoti had died many years prior to the institution of the suit, leaving no heir, and that they had themselves occupied the site ever since the time of Reoti's death. In connection with this plea the plaintiff produced in the Court of first instance a mortgage-deed in his favour purporting to be executed by this Reoti Kahar. The learned Munsif seemed to have thought that the production of this document could not help the plaintiff's case, because there was nothing in his plaint to indicate that he claimed possession of the land in suit on the strength of any title as a mortgagee. He also held that the document had not been sufficiently proved by the evidence of the scribe, Uttam Lal. The learned District Judge has not clearly stated that he held this document to be proved : but there is a passage in his judgment which sheo us that he regarded it as evidence of the fact of the plaintiff's possession. The document is unregistered, and the transaction was one of usufructuary mortgage for a sum of less than Rs. 100 so that it could have been effected at the date in question without execution of any document. Under the Circumstances the learned District Judge was entitled to hold it proved, and he seems to so held, that Reoti, who was admitted before him to have been the former occupier of the land in suit, had transferred, or purported to transfer, whatever rights of occupation he possessed' to the plaintiff by way of usufructuary mortgage. What the learned District Judge has, in my opinion, undoubtedly found is that, on the evidence as a whole the fact of the plaintiff's being in possession, and of his wrongful dispossession by the defendants at or about the date alleged in the plaint, is satisfactorily proved. On this finding he has decreed the plaintiff's suit. The contentions before me in second appeal are substantially three. One is to the effect that there has been no clear finding by the lower Appellate Court on the fact of the plaintiff's pos