A person in possession of land in the assumed character of owner and exercising peaceably the ordinary rights of ownership has a perfectly good title against all the world but the rightful owner.

Bose, J—The suit is fcr possession of a site marked E-F in the plan attached to the plaint The parties own adjoining h uses, and the site lies between the two properties. The plaintiffs case is that it belonged to his predecessor Yado Madhoji who sold it to him on April 30, 1933, by the sale deed (Ex. P-7), and that the defendant dispossessed him in May 1933. The defendant's case is that the site belonged to one Kasturchand Marwadi who gifted it to him on April 16, 1920, by a duly registered deen of gift (Ex. D-1).

2. These two instruments of title are not of much assistance in this case, for there is no doubt that they are perfectly valid with respect to the bulk of the properties which they respectively convey. The dispute is about a strip of land only 1 foot wide between them just wide enough for a wall to stand--on and the real question at issue is whether the wall which stood on the major portion of this strip belonged to the one house or the other.

3. The plaintiff's case is that his house, which is to the north of this strip, had its southern wall standing on the greater pare of E-F and that another person who owns a house on the other side of the defendant's property had his northern wall on the eastern edge of his land. The defendant then ran up two walls on the eastern and western sides of his property to connect with these walls, and thus built Limself a rocm of which only two walls were his own. The roof, which ran north and south, instead of resting on the walls there, was supported on woden poles.

4. The evidence which has been believed bears this out. The plaintiff's site was admittedlv (except of course the strip E-F about which the parties are at issue) originally Government property. Government built a house with two rooms on it for the use of a postal runner who was the plaintiff's predecessor Yado Madhoji. Later on Government sold it to him orally for Rs. 100 on September 20, 1929, and delivered possession on September 25, 1929. Of course this sale could only have been effected by a registered instrument and so it transferred no title, but the fact remains that Government did build this house and delivered possession to the plaintiff's predecessor on September 25, 1929.

5. But there are two points which require consideration. The plaintiff's predecessor Yado Madhoji says as P.W. No 2. ''The defendant is in forcible possession of the same for the last 12 years''. The learned Judge of the lewer Appellate Court thinks this was a slip of the tongue the part of the trial Judge for 12 months. Whether this was the slip of the pen or a slip of the tongue on the part of the witness, there cannot be the slightest doubt that it was a mistake which everybody has overlooked. When the deposition is read as a whole, it is abundantly evident that Yado could not have meant 12 years, for only a few sentences earlier he says he had lived continuously in the hut till April 30, 1933, which was just a year and 2 months before his doposithn. Also it is the case of both sides that there was no forcible exercise of rights, or fancied rights, till the plaintiff pulled this hut down in May, 1933, and attempted to re-build a wall on the disputed strip of land. The statement was made in examination-in-chief, and a I have said almost in the same breach as the other statements, and it wat not followed up in cross examination, as I have no doubt it would have been if it had not been an accidental slip. Therefore, I agree with the lower Appellate Court that the witness must have meant 12 months. Consequently whether this was an accidental slip of the pen on the part of the first Court when recording the evidence or an accidental slip of the tongue on the part of the witness when deposing, makes no difference.

6. The fact that the deposition was interpreted to the witness does not make this impossible. After all, witnesses are often slow thinking and the strange atmesphere of a Court is enough to confuse them. In such a state of mind a w