An agreement to sell explaining entry into possession does not defeat an adverse-possession claim.

The respondent/plaintiff sued for a declaration that he was the exclusive owner in possession of 4 kanals and 1 marla of land identified by specified khasra numbers.

He pleaded that he entered into possession under an agreement to sell dated 12 March 1991, that a sale deed was later executed for part of the land, and that he claimed title to the remaining suit land by adverse possession.

The petitioners/defendants objected that the suit was not maintainable because the plaintiff relied on allegedly inconsistent bases of title and had not adequately described the property as required by Order VII Rule 3 CPC.

The trial court decided both preliminary issues against the defendants. The defendants challenged that order in revision, arguing, among other things, that maintainability involved a mixed question of law and fact requiring evidence, and that the burden had been wrongly allocated.

Whether the plaintiff’s reliance on an agreement to sell to explain entry into possession, while claiming ownership by adverse possession, rendered the suit not maintainable

Whether the maintainability issue could be decided from the plaint without evidence and whether the burden of proving non-maintainability lay on the defendants

Whether the plaint sufficiently identified the suit land to satisfy Order VII Rule 3 CPC

Section 9 CPC provides that civil courts ordinarily have jurisdiction to try all suits unless their cognizance is expressly or impliedly barred; where defendants assert that a suit is not maintainable, they bear the burden of establishing that objection.

Order VII Rule 3 CPC requires a plaint concerning immovable property to describe it sufficiently for identification, including by reference to boundaries or numbers in settlement or survey records.

The court also applied the principle that a preliminary maintainability objection may be decided on the plaint’s averments where its determination does not require evidence.

The court held that the maintainability objection could be determined from the pleadings because the plaintiff’s case, as pleaded, was that he claimed title by adverse possession; the agreement to sell was referred to only to explain how he entered possession.

The pleas were therefore not contradictory so as to make the suit facially non-maintainable.

Although the trial court’s wording of the issue placed the onus on the plaintiff, the defendants had raised the objection and bore the burden of proving non-maintainability; the wording caused them no prejudice.

As to identification of the property, the plaint specified the khasra numbers, measurements, and khewat and khata numbers, which the court found sufficient under Order VII Rule 3 CPC.

It dismissed the revision petition as lacking merit, leaving the trial court’s order in place.