B.S. LALITHA Vs. BHUVANESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) The present appeal, directed against the judgment and order dtd. 29/8/2024 of the High Court of Karnataka at Bengaluru in Civil Revision Petition No. 144 of 2023, whereby the revision petition filed by Respondent Nos. 1 and 2 (legal representatives of Defendant No. 4 in the suit), stood allowed setting aside the order dtd. 15/11/2022 passed by the LXI Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge, Bengaluru in O.S. No. 5352/2007, allowing I.A. No. IV filed under Order VII Rule 11(a), (b) and (d) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (hereinafter, 'the CPC'), and rejecting the plaint.

(3.) The central question that arises in this appeal is whether the High Court was justified in allowing a second application under Order VII Rule 11 of the CPC seeking rejection of the plaint in a suit for partition filed by the daughters of a Hindu male who died intestate, when an earlier application under Order VII Rule 11(d) raising substantially the same issue had been dismissed by the High Court itself in Regular First Appeal No. 168 of 2009, and that order had attained finality. The appeal also raises the connected question of whether Sec. 6(5) of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 (hereinafter, 'the H.S. Act'), as substituted by the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 (39 of 2005) (hereinafter, 'the 2005 Amendment'), operates as a jurisdictional bar to the institution of a suit for partition, or whether it is in the nature of a saving clause only.