The main legal point established is that in property disputes, the terms of the license, the concept of implied license, and the applicability of limitation are crucial in determining the rights of the parties involved.

Findlay, J C—The facts of this case are sufficiently clear from the judgments of the two lower Courts. The defendants have now come up on second appeal to this Court against the judgment and decree of the lower appellate Court.

2. The first question for decision is what was the exact license or grant to the appellants. Their contention in this connexion is that no definite portion of the wall for the building of the staircase' was given and that they were entitled to take as much of the wall as was reasonable for the purpose. Such a contention seems to me an utterly impossible one on the evidence on record. It is true that D. 11, the permission granted by the manager of the Senior Bhonsla Estate was vague in the extreme, but the words used clearly imply that only a small portion of the breadth of the wall was to-be used for the purpose of building the staircase The plaintiff Raja Laxmam Rao (P. W. 3) and. his brother were then separate and the defendants took the wise course of also obtaining permission) from the former. Prom this point of view, the plaintiff and his brother were co-owners of the wall in question and not joint owners. The permission granted on behalf of the present plaintiff expressly stated that only two feet of the wall were given. An attempt has been made to suggest that the permission so-given contained a patent ambiguity. This contention I find it utterly impossible to accept. Very clearly the reference could only be to a breadth of two feet along the wall Which adjoins the defendant's house, and there cannot be a shadow of doubt but that the defendants knew from the first that they were only granted permission to construct their staircase ' on a space two feet broad on the northern side of the wall. The oral evidence on record, which indeed it is hardly necessary to allude to, on any reasonable construction of the terms of D. 8 and D. 11, makes the position sufficiently clear and there cannot be the slightest doubt but that the defendants from the first knew that it was intended by the plaintiff', and agreed upon by the parties, that they should only get a space along the wall of 2 feet in breadth. There was thus only an express license to this extent and admittedly the defendants have encroached far beyond it.

3. It has next been suggested that there was an implied license to construct the staircase, as has been done, and the grounds on which this allegation has been put forward are the conduct of the parties and a plea of acquiescence. As regards the conduct of the parties, it is clear that friction subsequently developed between them over another boundary dispute and that the present defendants succeeded in that suit (No. 59 of 1917), which was finally decided on appeal on 11th July 1922. It is suggested that the ' plaintiff lay low and raised no objection to the staircase as constructed until the letter (P. 2), dated 20th August 1921, was sent to the present defendants. That is apparently so, but it is a long step from these facts to presume that there had been actual acquiescence on the part of the plaintiff. It is more than possible that owing to lack of the supervision on the part of the plaintiff's manager and servants, the matter was never noticed until much later and this is indeed what the evidence of Narayan Rao (P. W. 1), manager, suggests. It is not even clear from his evidence that the encroachment was first noticed in 1917. What he says is that it came to light when measurements were being taken in connexion with the other suit between the parties and, as that suit want on for several years, the fact may very well have only come to notice about the year 1920 or 1921. I can find no proof whatever of acquiescence and this is true, even although the plaintiff had earlier notice than what seems to be the 'case of the encroachment. A mere delay in filing a suit, like the present, does not per se constitute acquiescence : cf. Uda Begam v. Imam-ud-Din,1876 1 ILR(All) 80. If a stranger buil