Manchanayake Arachchilage Dharmawathie vs. Keppetiwalana Ralalage Rohini Lanka and others – SC APPEAL NO. 151/2015-2023

In the case between Manchanayake Arachchilage Dharmawathie (and heirs) and the 1st to 4th, 9th Defendant-Appellant-Appellants, along with other co-owners, the court addressed issues relating to the inheritance and devolution of property originally acquired by Pabilis Appuhamy. The main legal question pertained to the competing claims of prescriptive possession versus claims established through deed and inheritance pedigree evidence. It was held that the claim for prescriptive possession over the entire corpus was not established, given the lack of exclusive and adversarial possession by the Appellants, and that the distribution of shares among co-owners must follow evidence derived from deeds and accepted genealogy. The principle reaffirmed is that co-ownership rights may not be excluded t