JANAKI AMMA Vs. PADMAVATHI AMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THREE members of a Nair Tarwad filed the suit for partition of the tarwad properties and obtained a preliminary decree for the same. One of these three members by name Padmanabhan Nair died while the appeal against the preliminary decree was pending in the High Court. His wife and child applied to get themselves impleaded in the appeal as the legal representatives of Padmanabhan Nair. The remaining plaintiffs who were respondents in appeal objected to the same as according to them, Padmanabhan nair had no definite share in the properties. The status of the petitioners as the legal wife and child of Padmanabhan Nair was also questioned. Giving the remaining plaintiffs the right to agitate this matter in the trial court, the high Court impleaded the alleged wife and child in appeal. When the matter came back to the lower court for the passing of the final decree, the alleged wife and child filed a petition for Padmanabhan Nair's one-third share in the properties that would be allotted to the three plaintiffs and claimed it to be divided by metes and bounds as according to them he had under law a right to such share. The objections raised by the plaintiffs in the High Court were repeated by them. The learned judge therefore held an enquiry as to the status of the petitioners as well as the question whether Padmanabhan Nair had any definite share. He came to the conclusion that before his death Padmanabhan nair had claimed his share in the tarwad properties, that he had therefore attained a divided status, that his share would therefore go to his legal representatives and that the Ist petitioner was the legal wife of the deceased padmanabhan Nair and the 2nd petitioner was the legitimate child by that union. They were therefore allowed the share in the properties which would have gone to Padmanabhan Nair had he been alive. It is against this order that the present appeal is filed by the two remaining plaintiffs.

(2.) IN the objection petition filed by the plaintiffs there was no denial of the status of the petitioners as the wife and child of the deceased Padmanabhan Nair. The only contention was that they were to prove their status. P. W. 4 had sworn that the 1st petitioner was the legal wife of the deceased Padmanabhan Nair and the child was born of that marriage. The status also was not seriously disputed before us in argument. We would therefore confirm the findings of the lower court that the petitioners are the legal representatives of the deceased Padmanabhan Nair.