Konda Lakshmana Bapuji vs Govt. Of Andhra Pradesh & Ors on 29 January, 2002
In Konda Lakshmana Bapuji v. Govt. of A.P. and Ors. the apex court declared that onus of proof to establish acquisition of title by prescription lies on the party who makes any such assertion. The court further held that time for the purpose of adverse possession, would start running from the date both, the actual possession and assertion of title, are shown to exist. The court explained that mere possession of land, however long it may be would not ripen into title unless the possessor has animus possidendi to hold the land adverse to the title of the true owner and that an assertion of title by adverse possession must be clear and unequivocal though not necessarily addressed to the real owner. Consequently, where at the commencement of the possession there is no animus possidendi, the period relevant for the plea of adverse possession commences from the date when both, the actual possession and assertion of title by the possessor, are shown to exist. In the peculiar facts of the case before their lordships' it was held that the defendants had pleaded adverse possession for the first time only in the written statement filed in the suit, the court accordingly excluded the period till the date of the filing of the written statement from reckoning on the ground that there was no animus possidendi during the said period nor had the defendant claimed any title to the land in dispute adverse to the defendant. The following passage is in this connection apposite: