( 1. ) THE plaintiffs Chhotelal and Bhuresingh (brothers) have preferred this appeal from the judgment and decree by the Fourth Additional district Judge, Jabalpur, dated 16th February 1970 whereby the plaintiffs suit for partition and possession of the house in question bearing No. 1130/2, gorakhpur, Jabalpur, was dismissed.

( 2. ) THE following pedigree of the parties may be helpful in understanding the facts of the case:

( 3. ) THE plaintiffs case is that Babulal and Girdharilal jointly acquired the house in question out of the sale proceeds of an ancestral house. Babulal, it is admitted, started living separately from Girdharilal sometime after the year 1932. It is further not in dispute now that plaintiff No. 1 Chhotelal left the house in question sometime in 1943-44. It is alleged that in 1950 Girdharilal sold a portion of the house in question, marked by Letters Q R S T in the map annexed to the plaint, to defendant No. 3 Gorelal who in his turn raised construction on it. Again, on 11-12-1961, Premlal (defendant No. 1) sold another portion of the suit house along with land marked A B C D on the map to Smt. Vidyawati, defendant No. 2, who is admittedly in possession of that portion. Two more persons were impleaded as defendants in the case on the ground that one of them is a tenant in a portion of the house and pays rent to defendant premlal and an agreement to sell another portion of the house has been entered into with the other.

( 4. ) THE suit was resisted by all the defendants except defendant No. 5 who was proceeded against ex parte. They pleaded that the suit property had been partitioned as far back as in the year 1933 when the parties had separated and the house in question had fallen exclusively to the share of defendant No. 1 premlal. In the alternative, it was pleaded that the defendants had perfected their title to the suit property by adverse possession. Defendants Nos. 2 and 4 further pleaded that they had invested large sums of money in the property in question as bona fide purchasers for value and in case the plaintiffs suit is decreed, they should be held entitled to get that amount. The learned trial court framed a number of issues on the various contentions raised by the parties. After scrutinizing the evidence produced by them, it came to the conclusion that the partition of the suit property in the year 1933 was not proved. All other points except the question of ouster and adverse possession were also decided in favour of the plaintiffs; but, as regards the question of adverse possession and ouster, the learned trial Court found that there was ouster of the plaintiffs from the suit property in the year 1943-44 and since then Girdhari-lal and Premlal had been in exclusive possession of the property. In support of its conclusion, it referred to a number of circumstances to which we shall presently refer.

( 5. ) WE have heard learned counsel for the appellants and have also perused the relevant record. Shri P. C. Naik, learned counsel for the appellants has very frankly conceded before us that no just exception can be taken to the finding of the trial Court that the plaintiffs had been out of possession of the suit property since the year 1943-44. However, he has strenuously urged that limitation for filing the suit commenced only in 1954 when the plaintiff made a demand for partition of the property and the same was refused by the defendants. It has been argued that the defendants had not perfected their title to the property in question by adverse possession. In support of this contention, he has relied upon Raghoba v. Aburao, AIR 1929 PC 231.

( 6. ) IT is beyond controversy that the plaintiffs were living in the same town in which the property in question is situated. There is also no gainsaying the fact that Girdharilal, father of defendant No. 1 Premlal, sold away a portion of the property to Gorelal, defendant No. 3, in the year 1950 and the latter raised construction on it in the year 1963