A Plaintiff Can Claim Title To The Property Based On Adverse Possession, Reiterates SC [Read Judgment]

A plaintiff can claim title to the property based on adverse possession, the Supreme Court has reiterated.

In this case, the appeal arose from a suit filed by a plaintiff who claimed that he was in possession of the land from 1963 to 1981 claiming ownership as against defendant and that his possession had matured into title.

The Trial Court decreed the Suit, but in the appeal filed by the defendant, the High Court set aside these findings on the ground that the plaintiff was not the true owner of the property.

In appeal [Krishnamurthy S. Setlur (D) vs. O. V. Narasimha Setty (D)], the bench comprising Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice Aniruddha Bose, perusing the revenue records, observed that it shows that from 1963, the plaintiff had been shown to be in possession. It said:

This possession was adverse to the true owner. It was openly hostile to the claim of HR and his legal representatives and they never filed a suit for possession of the property. Once it is held that KS was in possession of the suit property, the consequence will be that he is in adverse possession.

The bench also observed that the defendants failed to show how they obtained possession of the property. He may have been dispossessed after filing of the suit but that has no effect on the case., it said.

Referring to recent judgment by three judge bench in Ravinder Kaur Grewal & Ors. v. Manjit Kaur , it said:

In a reference made to a larger Bench of this Court in this case as well as in other connected matters in the case of Ravinder Kaur Grewal & Ors. v. Manjit Kaur & Ors. , the larger Bench had held that the plea of adverse possession can be used both as an offence and as a defence i.e. both as sword and as a shield..

… Thus, there can be no manner of dispute that a plaintiff can claim title to the property based on adverse possession 

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