1. Leave granted. This appeal by special leave arises from the judgment of the Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court, made on February 21, 1997, in Writ Appeal No. 7345/96.

2. The petitioners, admittedly, had purchased the property in the years 1962-63 and 1963-64 from the original allottees. The Government have allotted those lands as per Saguvali Chit containing prohibition of alienation of the land. Subsequently, the Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of Certain Lands) Act, 197 was enacted totally prohibiting the alienation up to a particular period. The proceedings were initiated against the petitioners for ejectment under the said Act. All the authorities have concurrently held that the alienation in favour of the petitioners was in violation of the above Rules and the said Act and hence the s ales are voidable. When the case had come up before this Court, this Court while upholding the constitutionality of the directed the authorities to go into the question of adverse possession raised by the petitioners. The learned Single Judge has extracted the pleadings on adverse possession of the petitioners. The rein, the High Court had pointed out that the re is no express plea of adverse possession except stating that after the purchase of the lands made by the m, they remained i n possession and enjoyment of the lands. What requires to be pleaded and proved is that the purchaser disclaimed his title under which he came into possession, set up adverse possession with necessary animus of aserting open and hostile title to the knowledge of the true owner and the later allowed the former, without any let or hindrance, to remain in possession and enjoyment of the property adverse to the interest of the true owner until the expiry of the prescribed period. The classical requirement of adverse possession is that it should be necvi, clam, aut precario. After considering the entire case law in that behalf, the learned Single Judge has held thus:"The contention raised by the petitioners that they have perfected their title in respect of the lands in question by adverse possession, has to fail on two counts. Firstly, the crucial facts, which constitute adverse possession have not been pleaded . The pleadings extracted above, in my view, will not constitute the crucial facts necessary to claim title by adverse possession. It is not stated by the petitioners in their pleadings that the petitioners at any point of time claimed or asserted their title hostile or adverse to the title of the original grantees/their vendors. In my view, mere uninterrupted and continuous possess ion without the animus to continue in possession hostile to the rights of the real owner will not constitute adverse possession in law.

3. In case of Lakshmi Reddy (supra) relied upon by Sri Narayana Rao at Para graph 7 of the judgment, the Supreme Court, following the decision of the Privy Council in State for India vs. Debendra Lal Khan, has observed that the ordinary classical requirement of adverse possession is that it should be nec vinec clam nec precario and the possession required must be adequate in continuity, in publicity and in extent to show that it is possession adverse to the competitor.

4. In the case of State of West Bengal vs. Dalhousie Institute Society, the Supreme Court, on the basis of the materials on record, which were referred to by the High Court, took the view that in the said case, the respondent had established his title to the site in question by adverse possession. Further, the said decision proceeds on the basis that the grant mad e by the Government was invalid in law. That is not the position in the present case. The alienation in question was only voidable. The petitioners came into possession of the lands in question by virtue of the sale deeds which are only voidable in law. Therefore , they have come into possession by virtue of the derivative title as observed by the Supreme Court in the case of Chandevarappa (supra). Further, in the case of Kshitish Chandra (supra), the observation made by the Supreme Court at paragraph 8 of the judgment relied upon by Sri Narayana Rao in support of his contention that the only requirement of law to claim title by adverse possession is that the possession must be open and without any attempt at concealment and it is not necessary that the possession must be so effective so as to bring it to the specific knowledge of the owner is concerned, I am of the view that the said observation must be understood with reference to the observations made in Paragraph-7 of the judgment. At paragraph-7 of the Judgment, the Supreme Court has observed thus:

"7... For instance, one of the most important facts which clearly proved adverse possession was that the plaintiff had let out the land for cultivatory purpo ses and used it himself from time to time without any protest from the defendant. During the period of 45 years, no serious attempt was made by the municipality to evict the plaintiff knowing full well that he was asserting hostile titled against the municipality in respect of the land." *

5. Further, this Court, in the case of.