Ponnambalam v. Vaitialingam and another – 1978_79 volume 2 page 166

The case between Ponnambalam (and his wife) and Vaitialingam (among other co-owners) addressed the issue of whether a co-owner may acquire prescriptive title to a divided lot, thus terminating common ownership of land. The court held that long-standing, exclusive, and adverse possession of physically demarcated lots by co-owners—spanning 30 to 40 years—constituted sufficient evidence of amicable division and ouster, and that common ownership had lawfully ceased. This principle reaffirmed that termination of common ownership can result from court-directed partition or from a de facto division where exclusive possession is maintained for over ten years. The decision relied on established precedents such as Corea v. Iseris Appuhamy and emphasized that prescription among co-owners requires cle