Gamaralage Kiri Banda Batuwatta vs Gamaralalage Mudiyanse et al. – CA NO.05/99 F -1999

In the case between Gamaralage Kiri Banda Batuwatta (Plaintiff-Appellant) and Gamaralalage Mudiyanse and others (Defendants-Respondents), the court addressed the issue of whether the Defendants-Respondents had acquired prescriptive title to individual plots, thus extinguishing the Plaintiff-Appellant’s co-ownership and barring a partition remedy. It was held that the Defendants-Respondents failed to establish prescriptive title by adverse possession, as the evidence did not satisfy the stringent legal requirements for ouster among co-owners. The principle was reaffirmed that acts by a co-owner must be unequivocally adverse and of such a nature as to provide clear notice of exclusion to other co-owners to amount to prescription against them. Reliance was placed on Section 3 of the Prescript