Nikko alias Punjab Kaur and
another AIR 1964 SC 1821; Kura and another Vs. Jag Ram and others
AIR 1954 SC 269 and judgments passed by this Court in Balihar Singh Vs.
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Sarabjit Kaur and others 2017 (2) PLR 226; Tehal Singh and another Vs.
Shamsher Singh(D) through LRs 2015(81) RCR (Civil) 676; Jal Singh
and another Vs. Chunni Lal and others 2019 (1) RCR (Civil) 210; Tara
Wanti and another Vs. Shanti and another 2007 (1) RCR (Civil) 808; Taro
Devi Vs. Raunak Singh and others 2013(5) RCR (Civil) 59 and Kulwant
Singh Vs. Harbhajan Singh and others 2016 (3) PLR 271. In order to
buttress his arguments submitted that in all the above cited judgments on
appreciation of direct and cogent evidence original excerpt has not been
proved, thus, urges this Court to uphold the finding of fact and law as there
is no illegality and perversity.
Thus, no rule of the thumb can be laid down. It is also highly significant--as was pointed out by appellant's learned counsel--that Nikka and Moru, sons of Kahna, though alive and parties to the suit, did not have the courage to enter the witness-box and support the case of the plaintiffs. I may refer to Kura v. Jag Ram, AIR 1954 S.C. 269 (K), where their Lordships of the Supreme Court were pleased to observe as follows :
8. Although, however, the section is capable of bearing this interpretation, I do not consider that in the light of the objects of the statute as a whole such an interpretation was ever intended. The Legislature has every right to have statutes construed in a reasonable manner and it is clear that the object of this statute is to give any one who has served in the Army on the war time conditions the benefit of this period of service in any litigation on which he wishes to embark and also to any party having a claim against a soldier and it can surely never have occurred to the mind of the legislators that any plaintiff who himself never served in the Army could, by Impleading an ex-soldier as a proforma defendant extend the time of limitation of his suit by claiming the benefit of the military service of such a defendant. The matter has in fact come before the Supreme Court in -- 'Kura v. Jag Ram', AIR 1954 SC 369 (A), which deals with a case in which a suit was instituted by one of two brothers named Kura challenging under custom an alienation by his father, and at first his brother Sawan was impleaded as a defendant but subsequently was transposed as a plaintiff.
This section only prescribes the mode of acquisition of occupancy rights under certain circumstances. It does not say that the person who acquired the right of occupancy under this clause would be having ancestral rights in that land. When there was no material on record to prove that defendant No.4 inherited the right from his father it could not be said that suit land in his hands was ancestral. Not only no evidence to this effect was produced, the plaintiffs withheld best evidence namely revenue record which could throw light on this aspect, and therefore, adverse inference can be drawn against the appellants even on this ground inasmuch as burden was upon the plaintiffs to establish the ancestral character of the land ( Kura Vs. Jag Ram, ).