RANGACHAR Vs. SIDDALINGAMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard counsel,

(2.) This first appeal has been preferred by the original plaintiff in OS No. 14 of 1993 on the file of the learned Principal Civil Judge, Bangalore. The appeal assails the correctness of a judgment dated 17-11-1994 whereby the plaintiffs suit for partition has been dismissed.

(3.) The learned Advocate who represents the appellant has advanced the submission that the plaintiff had demanded a one half share in the self-acquired properties of the husband of the defendant who is the plaintiffs late brother. Briefly stated, the plaintiffs case was that the properties in respect of which the partition is demanded and the share is claimed consisted of joint family properties and acquisitions made out of the income from those properties and that ipso facto, the plaintiff, as a member of the HUF, was entitled to a one half share in the same. The contention is put forward that as normally happens, the revenue records stood in the name of the elder brother whom this Court would have to regard more or less as the Karta of the HUF and that the property income which has been used exclusively for the acquisition of the properties in dispute. As far as this aspect of the submission is concerned, I need to note that the position that obtains under Hindu Law is very clear in so far as if it is contended that the properties in dispute should be treated as deeming to form part of the corpus of the joint family property, then it must be demonstrated that the source of acquisition of those properties was from the original joint family properties themselves. It is not unusual for properties to be acquired out of other sources of income and merely because a Karta or member of a joint Hindu family is in possession of other properties, it would not ipso facto entitle the other coparceners to claim a share in those properties. More importantly, the existence of the joint family must be established to the satisfaction of the Court to the extent that it mus be demonstrated additionally that the joint family status had continued up to the point of time when out of that income the properties in dispute were acquired. It is in this background that the facts of the present appeal will have to be appraised.