Prescription-Native Disposition of Lands Ordinance 1918-Violation does not
preclude prescription

Prescription-Requirements-Origin of title not important when there has been
peaceful and uninterrupted possession for more thanfifteen years

When a party is in peaceful and uninterrupted possession of an area of
land for fifteen years or more, he is entitled to rectification of the register
on the basis of acquisitive prescription, regardless of the fact that the pur-
chase under which he claims did not have the consent of all the owners or
that the purchase did not have the consent of the Governor as required by
the Native Disposition of Lands Restriction Ordinance 1918.

Native Disposition of Lands Restriction Ordinance 1918.

Prescription and Limitation Ordinance 1928.

Revision

The facts of this case as they appear in the record are as follows:

Under a native deed of sale drawn in 1913, the appellants' father
purchased a plot of rainland from the respondents' father at a price of

• Court: Halford I.

£E.15 and ever since the appellants enjoyed -peaceful and uninter-
rupted possession for more than 15 years. The respondents allege
that no sale was effected and that the .iE.15 were a loan secured by
mortgage of the land in question.

The surviving co-heirs with respondents' father denied that they
have consented to the sale and stated that therespondents' father has _
no authority to dispose of their shares.

Appellants now claim rectification of the register on the basis of
acquisitive prescription.

The District Court held that the appellants had failed to prove
consent of the co-owners, and therefore there was no valid sale; further
that the sale was voidable as the Governor's consent was not obtained
as required by the Native Disposition of Lands Restriction Ordinance
1918 and title by acquisitive prescription cannot be recognized when
this would contradict the aforesaid ordinance; and therefore the ap-
pellants were not entitled to have the plot registered on their name,
but only to a return of the purchase price.

December 28, 1929. C. Halford J.: The facts are not in dispute;
namely that the appellants have been in peaceful and uninterrupted
possession for a period of more than 15 years of a quantity of 5
gadaas of land out of the 60 feddans odd forming plot No. 668 map 19
Arbagi registration section in virtue of a deed of sale by some, if not

          all, of the registered owners to the father of the appellants.         

The appellants are therefore undoubtedly entitled irrespective of
the origin of their title, to claim registration as owners both under the
old rules relating to the acquisitive prescription of land as well as
under the Prescriptive and Limitation Ordinance 1928.

In my opinion the District Judge has misdirected himself in hold-
ing that the provisions of the Native Disposition of Land Restriction
Ordinance 1918 preclude them from the exercise of this right by reason
of the fact that the purchaser failed to obtain the Governor's consent
to the sale: A prescriptive right which accrues by operation of law is
not a disposition and as such cannot-as the District Judge appears to
think--confl.ict with any of the provisions of the Ordinance in question.
The appellants do not want the purchase price to be repaid to them;

, they want the land they have acquired and in mv view they are en-
titled to it.

The order will be that the decree of the court below will be
set aside; that there be a declaration in favour of the appellants that