In this case three Plaintiffs brought a possessory suit under sec. 9 of the Specific Relief Act claiming possession of certain property. During the pendency of the suit Plaintiff No. 3 withdrew from it leaving Plaintiffs Nos. 1 and 2 entitled according to their case to the possession of the 8 annas share of the property. The lower Court holding the Defendants to be trespassers and being disposed to think that Plaintiff No. 3 had withdrawn from the suit in a collusive manner, gave judgment in favour of the Plaintiffs Nos. 1 and 2 in respect of the whole.
A Rule has been granted calling upon the opposite party to show cause why this order should not be set aside on the ground that the Munsif acted without jurisdiction in decreeing the suit, after Plaintiff No. 3 who was admittedly in joint possession of the land with the other Plaintiffs had withdrawn from it. We are of opinion that the Rule must be made absolute. The question involved in this case is a very short and simple one, namely, whether a party entitled to an 8 annas share in a property is entitled to proceed under sec. 9 of the Specific Relief Act when the dispossession is in respect of the whole. This turns on the question whether possession in this section includes joint possession, and we have to decide it without the assistance of any authority. Looking at the words of the section as they stand, we are of opinion that they refer to exclusive possession and the Court had no jurisdiction to grant joint possession under the section. We have treated the case as being one where a party seeks possession of his share only of property from which he himself and his co-sharers have been dispossessed and it is incompetent for the Court to give possession of the whole of the property in such a case.
The Rule must accordingly be made absolute and the order of the Munsif set aside.
The case is one in which we think each party must bear its own costs.
Rule made absolute.