K.M. Krishna Reddy vs Vinod Reddy
Background
The appellant filed a suit seeking a perpetual injunction to protect his possession of a property he claimed was allotted to him under a 1993 family settlement after his father's death. The defendants (respondents) admitted the appellant's father originally owned the property but claimed they had been in continuous possession since 1978 and had perfected title by adverse possession, while also separately claiming that the appellant's brother had received the property in an earlier partition and had agreed to sell it to their mother. The Trial Court and first Appellate Court ruled for the appellant, but in second appeal the High Court reversed the decree, focusing only on whether a later amendment to the plaint (adding a declaration-of-title claim) was barred by limitation.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that where a defendant's only defence is adverse possession against the plaintiff, that defence itself presupposes the plaintiff's ownership, so there is no real "cloud" on title requiring the plaintiff to separately seek a declaration: a suit for injunction alone remains maintainable, relying on its earlier ruling in Anathula Sudhakar v. P. Buchi Reddy. It agreed with the High Court that the plaintiff's later amendment seeking a declaration was indeed time-barred, but found the High Court wrongly stopped there without deciding the actual merits of the possession and adverse-possession dispute. Since adverse possession is a plea the defendant must affirmatively prove, and the High Court never examined the evidence on that or on the appellant's possession at the time of suit, the Supreme Court held the matter had to go back for a full merits decision. It set aside the High Court's judgment, restored the second appeal to the High Court's file, directed it to frame additional questions of law, and, noting the appeal was already from 2007, ordered the High Court to give it out-of-turn priority.
Lesson Learnt
When a defendant to a possession suit relies solely on "adverse possession" as a defence, that plea itself concedes the plaintiff's original title, so the plaintiff does not need to separately sue for a declaration of ownership: a straightforward injunction suit can proceed, with the burden then on the defendant to actually prove the adverse possession claim.