The onus to prove the municipal number of the property is upon the plaintiff as it is he who has approached the court for relief of possession of a particular property

Challenge:  Trial court dismissed the suit by also holding that Appellant/Plaintiff claimed to seek possession of the property No. A-27, but Respondent/Defendant Nos. 1 and 2 pleaded that they had no connection with the suit property because their property number is C-23 and not A-27 and that whereas the property No. A-27 of the Appellant/Plaintiff fell in Khasra No. 822, the property No. C-23 of the Defendants fell in Khasra No. 824 with the fact that the Appellant/Plaintiff claimed ownership of 200 sq. yards whereas the plot of the Respondent/Defendant Nos. 1 and 2 was of 280 sq. yards.

In the opinion of the court the very dimensions of the suit property in the two site plans are so different that the same cannot be reconciled. Thus, the area and dimensions of the suit property could not be proved by plaintiff and unless the dimensions and area of the suit property are proved, a decree of possession cannot be passed in his favour.

Ratio:The onus to prove the municipal number of the property is upon the Plaintiff as it is he who has approached the court for relief of possession of a particular property bearing No. A-27. The Plaintiff, in order to prove the number of the suit property, relied upon title documents of property Mark A to H and Ex. PW1/10 to Ex. PW1/15. In the documents Mark A to Mark H there is no mention of the number of property.

The best way to prove the number of a property is by summoning the record with respect to the number of the houses in a society from the concerned authority or in case of a private colonized society from such colonizer or RWA/Panchayat, if the colonizer is not available. The Plaintiff made no such efforts to summon relevant record of municipal number of suit property from any of the concerned persons/bodies and he himself also failed to produce relevant documents to prove the municipal number of suit property.

Thus not only the Plaintiff failed to prove the number of the property, but he also failed to explain as to why he purchased a property which was occupied by trespassers and why the said fact was not recorded in the title documents. It is one thing to prove that a person is owner of a particular property and it is another to prove that the suit has been filed with respect to the said property only.

Delhi High Court agreed with the aforesaid findings of the Trial Court and stated that the Appellant/Plaintiff failed to get the property demarcated from the revenue authorities. It was further held that it is equally important to note that the number of the property of the Appellant/Plaintiff as A-27 is shown only for the first time in the title documents of the Appellant/Plaintiff but in prior documents of alleged ownership of the suit property there is no mention of the property by its number as A-27 and the trial court has in this regard also rightly observed that in fact in an earlier title document/sale deed the property number of the property of which the Appellant/Plaintiff claims ownership is shown a totally different number of A-43/2, West Vinod Nagar, Delhi. The trial court has rightly relied upon the vast differences in the measurements of two site plans filed by the appellant/plaintiff. The appeal was dismissed.