Failure to establish cause of action in property claims justifies dismissal of appeal.

J U D G M E N T

The appellants/plaintiffs non-suited concurrently by the courts below have come up with the appeal, seeking to raise substantial questions of law touching upon the entitlement of the appellants to maintain a suit for declaration of title and injunction against the respondents.

2. The brief facts necessary for the disposal of the appeal are as follows:-

The appellants/plaintiffs instituted a suit apprehending that there will be an eviction from the side of the respondents, by which the appellants will be dispossessed from the plaint schedule property. The appellants claimed that they are in the possession of the plaint schedule property by virtue of the occupation of the predecessor-in-interest as per sale deed Nos.3387/1961 and 2017/1966 and partition deed No.3012/1963 of SRO Perumbavoor. Later the property was assigned to the 1st plaintiff as per the settlement deed No.978/1967 of SRO Perumbavoor and later the 1^st plaintiff assigned 1 acre 26 cents of property in the name of the 2nd plaintiff as per the sale deed No.2781/1971 and 44 cents in the name of plaintiffs 3 and 6 by sale deed No.1209/2005. The remaining property are in joint possession of the plaintiffs, where they have cultivated coconut trees and rubber trees. On 11.10.2013, three surveyors of the 2nd defendant office inspected the plaint schedule property and informed the plaintiffs that the Government has included the land in their register as purambok land for the purpose of assignment to the land. Thus apprehending threat of dispossession by initiation of proceedings under the Kerala Land Conservancy Act , 1957, without giving value for improvements therein, the appellants / plaintiffs approached the Munsiff’s Court, Perumbavoor, seeking for a relief of declaration of title and consequential injunction. Pertinently, no notice under Section 80 of the Code of Civil Procedure , 1908, was issued, but then, the plaintiffs prayed that since no time was there to issue notice, separate application for dispensing the notice under of the , 1908, was being filed. The defendants entered appearance and resisted the suit. On behalf of the plaintiffs, Exts.A1 to A16 documents were produced and PW1 to PW4 were examined. On behalf of defendants, Exts.B1 to B4 documents were produced. Exts.C1 and C2 are the reports of the Advocate Commissioner and Exts.C1(a) And C2(a) are the rough sketches. The trial court on appreciation of the oral and documentary evidence came into conclusion that the property covered in favour of the plaintiffs are comprised in Re-Survey No.378/1, 378/2 and 379/1 as noted by the Advocate Commissioner. The corresponding old Survey numbers in respect of these properties were old Survey Nos.415, 1-9-53. Thus finding that no steps were taken by the appellants to identify the property with reference to the old survey records, the trial court non-suited the appellants. While non-suiting the appellants / plaintiffs, the prayer for injunction was also declined on the ground that there is no cause of action made out by the appellants / plaintiffs against the respondents. Aggrieved, the appellants preferred A.S No.45/2023, before the Civil Judge (Senior Division), Perumbavoor, which was dismissed by judgment dated

11.06.2025 and hence the present appeal.

3. Heard Shri.M.P.Sreekrishnan, the learned counsel appearing for the appellants and Shri.K.Denny Devassy, the learned Senior Government Pleader appearing on behalf of the respondents.

4. On considering the rival submissions raised across the Bar, this Court finds that no substantial questions of law arise for consideration in the present appeal. Pertinently, the appellants failed to get the property identified in terms of old survey records and therefore the courts below were ju