Law: Limitation Act (IX of 1908)

Section: 28

  Adverse possession-- .... Defendants claiming adverse possession, had to establish their adverse possession on the land in question, for acquiring hostile ownership rights therein, against true owners --- Defendants, however, miserably failed to prove that they were holding the land in question, in assertion of an open, uninterrupted hostile title qua the true owners for the requisite period of time --- Defendants' witnesses conceded in their cross-examination, that predecessor-in-interest of defendants, occupied the land in question, as a tenant ever since the year 1947 --- Such statement of defendants' witnesses was in accord with the revenue record --- Predecessor-in-interest of defendants being in possession as tenant, his possession over land in question, was permissive ---Predecessor-in-interest of defendants or defendants themselves, unless first relinquished permissive possession of land and re-entered therein in assertion of an open hostile title to the knowledge of true owners, their mere oral assertion of title. could 'not make their, possession adverse to plaintiffs (owners) --- Necessary elements of adverse possession were wanting in defendants' evidence ... Defendants having raised construction on a piece of land, such act was wholly unauthorized and that fact could not invest them with either moral or legal right to squat up on land belonging to plaintiffs -- Defendants' adverse possession over the land in question, was thus, not proved --- Plaintiffs being owners were entitled to get possession of land after removal of Malba from such land. Limitation Act (IX of 1908)--- ---- S.28 --- Extinguishment of right to property --- Provision of S.28, Limitation Act, 1908 -which postulated extinguishment of right to property, having been struck down by Supreme Court in Maqbool Ahmad's case (1991 SCMR 2063), as un Islamic, such decision had taken away the bottom from the plea of adverse possession taken by defendants --- Defendants, thus, had failed to establish their plea of adverse possession over the land in question. Syed Naeem-ul-Hassan Sherazi for Petitioners. ORDER   Defendants in the civil suit for possession of…