Case: Messrs Badri Prasad Bhola Nath and Others Vs. Ganesh Prasad and Others

2. The litigation is between landowner and alleged licensee and is for ejectment; the former won before the trial Court, lost in first appeal but again succeeded in the High Court. The tangle of facts need fuller narration for appreciation of the divirgence of views between the courts below and choice of the correct conclusion. Finality, on questions of fact, ordinarily attaches to the first appellate judgment. So we proceed on that footing and indeed, the High Court, while reversing the result, has not overturned the factual holdings of the District Judge.7. The High Court, strangely enough, did not reverse this finding negativing the case of licence set up by the plaintiff. Tos a basic issue is to make a short cut which, oftentimes, proves a wrong cut. The learned Judge, after stating that a suit for ejectment can be decreed on the basis of title even though a case of tenancy as pleaded may not be established, proceeded to clinch the matter by resort to doubtful logic and law. We had better borrow the language of the High Court itself.      The defendants were in occupation of the premises either with permission or without the permission of the plaintiff. If with permission, they were licencees. If without permission, they were trespassers. Ad valorems on the value of the property had been paid in the suit and the plaintiffs claim could be investigated on the basis of his title. Once the learned Judge came to the conclusion that the plaintiff was the owner of the property and the defendants had no. title to the same, it seems to me that the suit should be decreed on the basis of the plaintiffs title even though the case set out may not have been established in the form pleaded.

Reasoning:
We cannot say that it must be so, but we must say that the matter deserved to be considered before final disposal of the case. A finding on title in favour of the plaintiff who had no. explanation for the possession of the first defendant especially in a case where such possession was surrounded by circumstances tending to one inference or the other, could not inevitably end in a decree for possession. The investigation by the District Judge himself was incomplete and the High Courts simplistic disposal also cannot hold good9. We are therefore constrained to remit the case to the District Court for fresh disposal of the appeal after recording findings on issues 3 and 4. We make it clear that the title of the plaintiff will not be open to assail, that the suit property is accommodation within the meaning of the Act cannot bed and that the building on the plot was there even prior to the plaintiffs acquisition of the title must be taken as establsihed. We also add a note of caution that our broad discussion on the question of the nature of the possession is not intended to conclude the matter but to highlight the necessity for the recording of findings thereon. The observations made in that context should not be taken as fettering thet of the evidence by the District Court. If the Court thinks that there is need to allow the parties to let in further evidence or to call for a finding from the trial Court, it will not be precluded from doing so by this order.