Lis pendens-Transfer of Property Act, (4 of 1882)-Section 52-Whether arrests the running of the period of limitation during the pendency of the suit.

Limitation Act (9 of 1908), Art. 142-Scope of.

The respondents had filed a suit in 1940 claiming title to and possession of certain lands in the possession of the appellants and the suit ended in favour of the appellants in 1958.

In 1959, the appellant's filed a suit for possession against the respondents asserting that the respondents had taken illegal and forcible possession of those lands after the decision of the High Court in 1958. The respondents, however, claimed that they had taken possession of the lands even in 1944 and that they had been since then in adverse possession openly, continuously and exclusively as owners.

The trial court found that the respondents had been in possession of the lands from 1946 to the date of the appellants' suit. The first appellate court, however, held that the doctrine of lis pendens prevented the rights of the respondents from maturing. The High Court, accepting the concurrent findings as to the fact of possession of the respondents held that the adverse possession of the defendants commenced during the pendency of the earlier suit and once having begun to run would not stop running merely because of the pendency of the defendants" suit for possession which was dismissed in 1958,

In appeal to this Court, it was contended that,

(i) a portion of the land entered in revenue record as Banjar could not be adversely possessed at all and must be deemed to be in the possession of plain- tiffs on the principle that possession follows title;

(ii) Art. 142 of the Limitation Act was not applicable; and

(iii) the doctrine of lis pendens contained in s. 52 of the T.P. Act 1882 arrested the running of the period of limitation during the  pendency of the respondents' suit filed in 1940