Alawathura Raalalage Dhanusekera Vs. Dassanayaka Arachchige Jayasekera and others – SC APL/50/2015-2015

In the case between Dassanayaka Arachchige Jayasekera (Plaintiff) and, inter alia, Alawathura Raalalage Dhanusekera (1st Defendant-Appellant) and Hapan Thanthrige Pabilis (2nd Defendant-Respondent), the Supreme Court was required to determine whether the Plaintiff-Respondent was entitled to a servitude of right of way over the Defendant’s land despite an inadequate and imprecise description of the servient tenement in the pleadings, in noncompliance with Section 41 of the Civil Procedure Code. The court further addressed the proper identification of the servient tenement, the effect of discrepancy between competing survey plans, and the adequacy of evidence for prescriptive rights based on long usage. After review, it was held that the lower courts’ judgments were flawed due to fatal defec