• Is this issue applicable to Adverse Possession?

In 1910 the trust had purchased a land of 3 acres.
 In 1942 the public sector company had requested to acquisition to the government to allot 1 acre 30 guntas for public road purpose and in the same year the acquisition was cancelled,but still company retained position on land of 1acre 30 guntas and later in 1970 the company purchased 28 guntas for purpose of road only, out of 1 acre 30 guntas and remaining land (1 acre 2 guntas)is in position of public sector company.
The trust was and is in correspondence with the company regularly to either give compensation or give the land , but the company had not replied and they are in the position of 1 acre 2guntas excess in trust land by building a society club in the part of the land(1 acre 2 guntas) which was not supposed to be build . 
In 2015 the trust had referred to Deputy Commisioner(DC) and DC had referred the case to the consent tasildhar to survey the land and issue a notice to the company,but the company had replied that they are not having any documents for the extent of 1acer 2 guntas and after enquring the matter in 2016 tasildhar ordered to Give back the position of land to the trust but the company officials have not given the position of the land and are stating adverse possession is applicable and they are filing a case in civil court against trust.

1.will trust win the case and get back the position of land? 
2.Is Adverse possession applicable in this case? 
3.How many years will it take to resolve the issue in civil court? 

Kindly clarify…….
Asked 8 years ago in Property Law
Religion: Hindu

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8 Answers

Hi, It is very difficult to prove the adverse possession in the court and one more thing adverse possession is applicable when the company is enjoying the property adverse to the interest of the trust and company was continuously use that property without obstructions.

2. Trust has to file a Suit for deceleration and possession of the property based on the report given by the Thasildhar.

Pradeep Bharathipura
Advocate, Bangalore
5604 Answers
335 Consultations

4.5 on 5.0

Adverse possession of the land is the process by which title to another’s land is acquired without his permission. Adverse Possession is a possession which is opposed to once interest of the real owner of the property. It is possession in denial of the title of the true owner. That is the law as it exists is extremely harsh for the true owners and a windfall for a dishonest person who had illegally taken possession of the property of the true owner. Adverse possession consists of actual occupation of the land with the intent to keep it solely for oneself. Merely claiming the land or paying taxes on it, without actually possessing it, is insufficient. Entry on the land, whether legal or not, is essential. A trespass may commence adverse possession, but there must be more than temporary use of the property by a trespasser for adverse possession to be established. Physical acts must show that the possessor is exercising the dominion over the land that an average owner of similar property would exercise.

An adverse possessor must possess land openly for the entire world to see, as a true owner would.

Adverse possession will not ripen into title unless the claimant has had exclusive possession of the land.

Possession must be hostile, sometimes called adverse, if title is to mature from adverse possession.

All elements of adverse possession must be met at all times through the statutory period in order for a claim to be successful. The statutory period, or “statute of limitations”, is the amount of time the claimant must hold the land in order to successfully claim “adverse possession”.

It is necessary to understand the meaning of the word “Possession” which according to the Oxford Dictionary means- The state of having or owing something for a particular time. In general, the possession signify, physical detention coupled with intention to hold the things detained as one’s own to the exclusion of others. So, we can say that

possession consist of two elements: (a) Physical control or power over the object possessed called corpus. (b)Intention or will to exercise that power called animus.

Adverse possession, is the possession of property by a person which is adverse to every other person having, or claiming to have a right of possession by virtue of a different title. The law of prescriptive rights is best summed up by the Brocard, ‘nec vi, nec clam, nec precario’, indicating the acquisition of a right by prescription must be in circumstances that exclude ‘force, stealth or licence’.

A prescriptive right is essentially one that is created by uncontested assertion of the right for a given period of time. The principle is based in many ways on a sort of estoppel in rem. In India, the Limitation Act, 1963 is the legislation that governs the period within which suits are to be filed, etc.. The principle that pervades statutes of limitation at common law is that ‘limitation extinguishes the remedy, but not the right’ this means that the legal right itself is not defeated, but only the right to claim it in a court of law is extinguished. Section 27 of the limitation Act, 1963 proclaims that At the determination of the period hereby limited to any person for instituting a suit for possession of any property, his right to such property shall be extinguished.

In your case trust may approach the civil court for declaration of possession up on the trust

Ajay N S
Advocate, Ernakulam
4072 Answers
110 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

1. Nobody can tell you who will the case.

2. Prima facie, there is no adverse possession as the other party has been disputing the claim throughout.

3. The disposal time frame of the suit in civil court will be subject to the backlog of the court.

Ashish Davessar
Advocate, Jaipur
30763 Answers
972 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

1) trust will get possession of land and win the case

2) admittedly no compensation has been paid to the trust and acquistion of land had been cancelled

3) only local lawyer can guide you years it would take for suit to be disposed of

Ajay Sethi
Advocate, Mumbai
94523 Answers
7486 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

Hi

My views are as follows:

1) The trust will win the case and get back the possession of the land.

2) Adverse possession : The PSU is not in adverse possession at all. Hence no worries.

3) You will win the case within 1 year( as already DC has done a survey and the tahsildar enquiry is already complete.

In your case, the revenue (tahsildar) has ordered to give back the possession of the land to the trust, which adds merit to your claim and that will prove to be a master stroke in your legal claim.

So no worries at all as Supreme court itself has been against the concept of adverse possession and has been dismissing claims of adverse possession.

Leading case laws for your reference:

1) In the case of S.M. Karim v. Mst. Bibi Sakina AIR 1964 SC 1254 wherein the supreme court has laid down that the adverse possession must be adequate in continuity, in publicity and extent and a plea is required at the least to show when possession becomes adverse. The Court also held that long possession is not necessarily adverse possession.

2) in the case of State Of Haryana vs Mukesh Kumar & Ors on 30 September, 2011, the supreme court had laid down as follows:

It is indeed a very disturbing and dangerous trend. In our considered view, it must be arrested without further loss of time in the larger public interest. No Government Department, Public Undertaking, and much less the Police Department should be permitted to perfect the title of the land or building by invoking the provisions of adverse possession and grab the property of its own citizens in the manner that has been done in this case.

This Special Leave Petition is dismissed with costs of Rs.50,000/- (Rupees Fifty Thousand only) to be paid by the State of Haryana for filing a totally frivolous petition and unnecessarily wasting the time of the Court and demonstrating its evil design of grabbing the properties of lawful owners in a clandestine manner

Rajgopalan Sripathi
Advocate, Hyderabad
2173 Answers
394 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

1.will trust win the case and get back the position of land?

In my opinion, the trust has got a good case and the chances of winning are brighter.

2.Is Adverse possession applicable in this case?

Since the trust had been fighting for the land from the beginning till this date there is no question of adverse possession because the possession was not adverse to the trust and they had never consented to the company for keeping possession of land with them without making any compensation. so law of adverse possession may not operate in this situation.

3.How many years will it take to resolve the issue in civil court?

The answer is very simple 'unpredictable'

T Kalaiselvan
Advocate, Vellore
84724 Answers
2172 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

1) if HC has rejected stay application appeal can be filed on SC

2) trust can file caveat in SC

3) you can file caveat through your lawyer in SC

Ajay Sethi
Advocate, Mumbai
94523 Answers
7486 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

1. The opponent has rights to prefer an appeal before the proper appellate court if he is aggrieved by the decision of the lower appellant court.

2. Yes, the trust can very well file a caveat petition before supreme court.

3. You can contact any advocate practicing in supreme court who will guide you properly in this regard.

T Kalaiselvan
Advocate, Vellore
84724 Answers
2172 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

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