1. The plaintiff/appellant has preferred this second appeal under Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (for brevity CPC) against the judgment & decree dated 15.10.2014 passed by the Learned Second District Judge, Jagdalpur, Bastar, C.G. in Civil Appeal No. 12-A/2012 (Ramesh Kumar Padhi Vs. State of C.G. & Ors.) arising out of the judgment and decree dated 27.02.2008 passed by the Trial Court in Civil Suit No. 13-A/2006 (Ramesh Kumar Padhi Vs. State of C.G. & Ors.) whereby the learned trial Judge has dismissed the suit of the plaintiff/ appellant. For the sake of convenience, the parties would be referred as per their status before the learned trial Court.

2. The plaintiff instituted the suit seeking declaration of title over the suit land bearing Khasra No.164/29, recovery of possession and declaration that the order dated 15.06.1996 passed in Revenue Case No.793/94 be declared null and void pleading inter alia that the land comprised in Khasra No.164 originally stood recorded in the name of his ancestor Rikheshwar, son of Shyamsundar, and upon allotment made during the years 1944-45 to 1955-56, Khasra No.164/29 admeasuring 0.70 acre and Khasra No.164/30 admeasuring 0.90 acre came to be recorded in his ancestor’s name. It was pleaded that a pond had been constructed over Khasra No.164/29 and possession thereof remained with the plaintiff’s predecessor, and after his death, the plaintiff’s name was mutated in the revenue records and patta was granted to him on 28.10.1975. According to the plaintiff, during settlement proceedings in the year 1992-93, he came to know that the suit land had been altered and shown as Khasra No.164/28 and allotted in favour of defendant No.2(a) (b), legal heirs of Baijnath, without notice to him. Though the plaintiff preferred an application for correction before the Assistant Settlement Officer, the same was dismissed by order dated 15.03.1996. Alleging that the said order was illegal and that discrepancies existed in the maps supplied by the Patwari, the plaintiff filed the present suit seeking the aforesaid reliefs.

3.

(i) Defendant Nos. 2(a) & 2(b), in their written statement filed before the trial Court, admitted the averments contained in paragraph 1 of the plaint and denied the remaining pleadings. It was contended that the suit was based on contradictory and self-destructive averments and, therefore, was not maintainable. The defendants pleaded that they, and before them their father and grandfather, had been in continuous cultivating possession of the suit land since long and that the plaintiff had instituted the suit on false allegations with an intention to grab the land belonging to members of a Scheduled Tribe. It was further pleaded that actual possession over the land admeasuring 0.82 acre had always remained with defendant No. 3 and his predecessors, and the same had devolved upon them through lawful partition.

(ii) The defendants also set out their genealogy and stated that during the settlement proceedings, the competent authority had conducted measurement and survey of the village lands, whereafter extracts of the record of rights in Form “K” were supplied to their father. It was contended that land bearing Khasra No. 164/28 admeasuring 0.82 acre was thereafter measured and renumbered as Khasra Nos. 225/1 and 226/1, and corresponding revenue entries were duly recorded in their favour, thereby conferring lawful title upon them as successors of their ancestors. It was further submitted that the plaintiff’s allegations were baseless and had already been examined by the Assistant Settlement Officer, who, after due enquiry, rejected the plaintiff’s application by a reasoned order dated 15.03.1996.

(iii) Lastly, an objection as to jurisdiction was raised by contending that in view of Sections 251 and 257 of the Land Revenue Code, the Civil Court had no jurisdiction to entertain or adjudicate the challenge made against the said revenue order, and therefore, the suit deserv