The plaintiff in O. S. No. 287 of 1929 and defendant in O. S. No. 203 of 1930 is the appellant. He sued for possession of certain land which he claimed to have been demarcated as his by orders of a Survey Officer dated 30th September, 1926, while plaintiffs in O. S. No. 203 of 1930 sued to set the order aside. The latter suit was instituted on 1st July, 1930 and was clearly out of time. The appellant's suit was decreed by the District Munsif and dismissed by the Subordinate Judge in appeal who also gave the plaintiffs in O. S. No. 203 of 1930 a decree. The Subordinate Judge found that the defendants had a title by adverse possession and that plaintiff had not proved possession within 12 years of suit. In appeal it is contended that the decision of the Survey Officer was conclusive against the defendants. It is therefore necessary to enquire what the Survey Officer decided. Ex. A is appellant's petition to him. In it he claims title to the land as forming part of Survey No. 251 of which the defendants had added the portion now in dispute to their land (S. No. 254). The land should therefore be remeasured and redemarcated. The order of the Survey Officer runs:
“The complaint is allowed and the plots contested are ordered to be surveyed as petitioner's lands by effecting sub-divisions of them in field Nos. 254 and 241 (Ex. B).”
This was done but possession was not given. Under S. 13, Survey and Boundaries Act, the survey shall be conclusive proof that the boundaries determined and recorded therein have been correctly determined and recorded, and S. 14 makes the order in dispute under Ss. 10 and 11 final unless set aside by a suit filed within 3 years from the date of the order. Authority is clear (vide Muthirulandi Poosari v. Sethuram Aiyar and Ramamurti v. Narayana Gajapathi Raju , that the decision of the Survey Officer is not limited to the correctness of the boundaries determined. In 42 Mad. 425 the question referred to the Full Bench was “when a plaintiff's claim has been disallowed under the Survey and Boundaries Act IV of 1897 but he has been in possession of the property, does the decision of the Survey Officer operate as res judicata in a subsequent suit for possession? The answer was “the order was……conclusive as to the rights of the parties and none the less so because the unsuccessful party, who was in possession at the date of the order was not subsequently ousted from possession.” Phillips, J., in making the reference to the Full Bench, opined that the order of the Survey Officer would have interrupted the running of adverse possession. In Azhagaperumal Pillai v. Rasa Pillai , a somewhat different view was taken, but this has been adversely commented on in 64 M. L. J. 361. Hence the order of the Survey Officer must be taken to be that the appellant had title to the land and that the respondents had not title thereto by adverse possession at the date of the order. Following 42 Mad. 425 I find that adverse possession if any was interrupted by the order and demarcation consequent thereon. The appellant was therefore not bound to show possession within 12 years of suit independently of the order. The judgment of the District Munsif was therefore right. The appeals will be allowed with costs throughout.
N. R. R.Appeals allowed.