SIDDU VENKAPPA DEVADIGA Vs. RANGU S DEVADIGA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal of the defendant, by certificate, is directed against the appellate judgment of the High Court of Bombay dated June 27/28, 1968. As the appeal must succeed on a short point of law, it will be enough to state those facts which bear on it. It is a matter of regret that a voluminous paper-book should have been prepared in this case and its hearing delayed for so long.

(2.) Shivanna Devadiga, husband of plaintiff No. 1 and father of the remaining plaintiffs, had a hotel known as Krishnananda Upahar Graha in Bombay. Defendant Siddu Venkappa Devadiga was his sister's son. According to the plaintiffs, Shivanna started another hotel known as Purshottam Restaurant at a distance of about a furlong from Krishnananda Upahar Graha. As the parties were governed by Aliya Santhana Law, Shivanna looked after the defendant, his mother and her other children. The plaintiffs pleaded that the defendant was brought to Bombay by Shivanna and was employed by him in Purshottam Restaurant upto about 1955. He then went to his place in South Kanara, and did not return to Bombay until after Shivanna's death on September 8, 1958. The plaintiffs further pleaded that as the defendant gave an assurance that he would look after the interests of Shivanna's widow (plaintiff No. 1) and her children, they made over the key of Purshottam Restaurant to him. It was also the case of the plaintiffs that the defendant began to claim that the Purshottam Restaurant belonged to him, and refused to deliver possession thereof them when they returned to Bombay after performing the obsequies ceremonies of Shivanna. The plaintiffs accordingly instituted the suit which has given rise to this appeal on February 14, 1961, claiming possession of Purshottam Restaurant, a sum of Rupees 7,000/- as damages and/or compensation from September 9, 1958 upto the date of the suit, with interest, and any further amount as damages which the Court deemed just and proper.

(3.) The defendant controverted the claim of the plaintiffs and claimed that he had always been the sole and exclusive owner of Purshottam Restaurant ever since 1940 when it was started, that he had taken the premises of the restaurant on lease from the landlord in his own name, had obtained the municipal licences, the police licences and authorisations in his own name from the very inception, and that he had always been in custody and possession of that business.