CHALIAGULLA RAMACHANDRAYYA Vs. BOPPANA SATYANARAYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal brought on a certificate granted by the High Court of Andhra Pradesh is against a decision of that Court reversing a decree granted by the Subordinate Judge, Masulipatnam, dismissing a suit for partition.

(2.) Of the three plaintiffs who brought the suit two claimed to be the reversioners of Boppanna Chandrappa, to whom we shall refer to as Chandrappa and the third a purchaser of the interest of some of the reversioners, viz., defendants 4, 5 and 7. According to the plaint the three plaintiffs were thus entitled to a 5/6th share of the properties while the 6th defendant was entitled as reversioner of Chandrappa to the remaining 1/6th share. The property was however in the actual possession of the three sons of Nagayya who were impleaded as the first three defendants.

(3.) In contesting the suit these defendants denied that these properties had ever belonged to Chandrappa and further that the plaintiffs 1 and 2 or the defendants 4, 5, 6 and 7 were his reversioner. The main defence however was that even if the properties did belong to Chandrappa, the defendant's father Nagayya became entitled to these a s Chandrappa's illatom son-in-law. The basis of this plea of illatom son-in-lawship was said to be that Chandrappa had brought Nagayya into his family under an arrangement that the latter would marry his wife's sister's daughter Mangamma and help him in cultivation and management of the properties, in consideration of which Nagayya would inherit the entire property after Chandrappa's death.