History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.228.6

v4.c63.228.6

Śaṅkha (in V. R. p. 208) also refers to ten years. These passages apparently mean that at the end of 20 or 10 years' adverse possession by the wrongful possessor the ownership of the original owner is lost and the wrongful possessor becomes the owner. But there are several other smṛti passages where it is said that possession even for a hundred years originating in wrong cannot confer title and much longer periods are required for the loss of ownership and the acquisition of ownership by prescription. Vide Nār. IV. 86–87 cited (on p. 318 above). Nār. (IV. 89) himself says elsewhere that possession requires to be supported by title only during *smārtakāla* (during human memory), but in cases beyond human memory possession continued successively for three generations (or ancestors) is proof of ownership even in the absence of a document (or other title). Viṣṇu Dh. S. V. 187 is in similar⁴⁵⁷ terms. The Mit. on Yāj. (II. 27) says that *smārtakāla* is a period of 100 years, as the Veda declares that the span of a man's life is 100 years. For a hundred years it is possible for witnesses to depose to the origin of possession. So if there is possession for less than one hundred years, oral evidence can be adduced for establishing its origin, and title will have to be proved by the possessor and if no oral evidence is adduced to prove title, it is a case in which it may be held as certain that there was no title to begin with.