28. In T. Anjanappa and Others vs. Somalingappa and Another6, this Court reiterated that adverse possession contemplates possession which is hostile to the title of the true owner. A person asserting such a plea must establish by clear and unequivocal evidence that his possession was actual, open, continuous and hostile, so as to amount to a denial of the true owner’s title. Mere long possession, however uninterrupted, is insufficient unless accompanied by the requisite hostile animus. Where possession can be referred to a lawful or permissive origin, it cannot be regarded as adverse merely by lapse of time.

30. It is equally significant that neither the pleadings nor the evidence disclose the point of time at which the appellants’ possession allegedly became hostile to the true owners. There is no pleading identifying the date from which the title of the recorded proprietors was openly repudiated, nor is there evidence demonstrating any overt act by which such hostility was asserted to the knowledge of the true owners. The absence of these foundational pleadings is not a mere technical defect. They constitute the very basis upon which a plea of adverse possession rests. Unless the commencement of hostile possession is pleaded and proved, the statutory period prescribed under the Limitation Act, 1963 cannot even begin to run

31. The Trial Court and the First Appellate Court appear to have equated long and uninterrupted possession with adverse possession. Such an approach, with respect, overlooks the settled distinction between the two concepts. Long possession may furnish evidence of physical occupation, however it does not, by itself, establish that such possession was adverse in law. The doctrine of adverse possession does not reward longevity of occupation alone. It protects only such possession as is accompanied by a conscious and hostile assertion of ownership in denial of the rights of the true owner. Unless the element of hostility is affirmatively established, the plea must necessarily fail. [See: Government of Kerala and Another vs. Joseph and Others7]