IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH GURUDEV KAUR (SINCE DECEASED) THROUGH HER LRS .....APPELLANT VERSUS SAROJ JINDAL & ORS.

....RESPONDENTS

1. The date when the judgment is reserved 29.01.2026 2. The date when the judgment is pronounced 08.04.2026 3. The date when the judgment is uploaded 10.04.2026

4. Whether only operative part of the judgment is Full pronounced or whether the full judgment is pronounced

5. The delay, if any of the pronouncement of full Not applicable judgment and reason thereof.

CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE SANDEEP MOUDGIL.

Present: Mr. Sumit Singh, Advocate for Mr. BS Seemar, Advocate for the Appellant No.1 None for Respondents No.1 & 2 Respondents No.3 to 5 proceeded against ex parte SANDEEP MOUDGIL, J

1. The present Regular Second Appeal has been preferred by the appellant–defendant against the concurrent judgments and decrees passed by the learned Courts below dated 08.09.1989 and 13.01.1994, whereby the suit for possession instituted by the plaintiffs–respondents in respect of agricultural land measuring 1 Kanal 13 Marlas situated in the revenue estate of Nabha has been decreed in their favour. The undisputed factual matrix reveals that the plaintiffs, claiming themselves to be owners of the suit property on the basis of revenue record, instituted the suit in the year 1986 seeking possession on the allegation that the defendant had illegally encroached upon the land and raised construction thereupon without any right or title. The defendant, while contesting the suit, set up a plea of having come into possession of the suit land as early as in the year 1976 and asserted that her possession was open, continuous and hostile to the knowledge of the true owners and had, thus, ripened into ownership by way of adverse possession. Reliance was also placed upon an earlier suit allegedly filed in the year 1979 by Tara Chand, brother of the plaintiffs, wherein it was stated that the defendant had encroached upon the land about three years prior thereto, to contend that her possession stood admitted since 1976.

2. The learned trial Court, upon appreciation of oral as well as documentary evidence, including the jamabandi for the year 1981–82 and khasra girdawari entries produced by the plaintiffs, returned a finding that the plaintiffs had successfully proved their ownership over the suit land and that the defendant had failed to establish her plea of adverse possession, particularly in the absence of any cogent evidence indicating the exact date of commencement of possession or the hostile nature thereof, and consequently decreed the suit vide judgment dated 08.09.1989. The said findings came to be affirmed by the learned first appellate Court vide judgment dated 13.01.1994, which concurred with the trial Court in holding that the plea of adverse possession had not been proved in accordance with law and that the suit was not barred either by limitation or by the principle of res judicata.

3. Assailing the said concurrent findings, learned counsel for the appellant has contended that the Courts below have misread the evidence on record and have failed to appreciate the material admission arising from the earlier suit of 1979, which, according to him, clearly establishes that the defendant was in possession since 1976 and, therefore, by the time of institution of the present suit in 1986, her possession had matured into ownership by adverse possession. It has further been argued that the plaintiffs, being closely related to Tara Chand and having knowledge of the earlier litigation, were barred from instituting the present suit and that the findings recorded by the Courts below are perverse and liable to be set aside.

4. Per contra, learned counsel for the respondents has supported the impugned judgments and submitted that the plaintiffs are recorded owners of the suit land and the defendant is a rank trespasser who has failed to prove the essential ingredients of adverse possession, namely, the precise date