Cadija Umma, I.L.M And Another V. Don Manis Appu, S. And Others

[IN THE PRIVY COUNCIL.]

1938 Present: Lord Atkin, Lord Macmillan, Lord Porter, Sir Lancelot Sanderson,
and Sir George Rankin.

I. L. M. CADIJA UMMA AND ANOTHER v. S. DON MANIS APPU AND OTHERS.

Prescription-Adverse possession-Meaning of parenthetical clause-Roman law.

The words in section 3 of the Prescription Ordinance, viz., by a ?title adverse to or independent of the claimant or plaintiff? cannot be construed as introducing the requirement known to the Roman law as Justus titulus or justa causa,.

The purpose of the parenthetical clause in the section, viz., ?possession unaccompanied by payment of rent or produce or performance of service or duty or by any other act by the possessor from which an acknowledgment of a right existing in another person would fairly and naturally be inferred? is to explain the character of the possession which, if held without disturbance or interruption for ten years, will result in prescription.

The dictum of Bertram C. J. in Tillekeratne v. Bastian (21 N. L. R. 12) that the parenthesis has no bearing on the meaning of the words ?adverse possession?, disappro

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