NARAYANI AMMA Vs. KUNHAPPA KURUP

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff's suit for injunction, alternatively for recovery of possession, having been dismissed by the court below, this appeal has been preferred. The second respondent (2nd defendant) alone is seen to have filed written statement and contested the matter. The plaintiff's case was that the plaint schedule property previously belonged in tenancy right to one Ceriyakoya Thangal under a registered lease deed dated 6-8-1932. His leasehold right was sold in execution of a decree in O.S.294/58 on the file of the Munsiff's Court, Badagara, on 25-8-1941 and was purchased by the plaintiff as per Ext. A-1 sale certificate dated 10-10-1941. Ext. A2 is the delivery account dated 29-10-1941 and Ext. A3 is the amin's report regarding the delivery dated 23-10-1941 in E.P.No. 1573/41 in O.S.No. 294/58 Exts. A4 and A5 dated 25-7-1965 and 5-1-1967, respectively, are rent receipts obtained in the name of the plaintiff on 23-10-1941 and 25-7-1965; and Exts A6 to A9 are revenue receipts obtained in her name on 11-7-1972 and 7-12-1972, 7-12-1972 and 1-1-1973 respectively.

(2.) According to the plaintiff, her mother, the 4th defendant, had no house of her own. and as such she was living with her in the house in the plaint schedule property When the plaintiff shifted her residence to her husband's house, the 4th defendant along with her children, who are defendants 1 to 3, continued to live in the house in the plaint property. The plaintiff, however, continued to take the income from the property, and attended to all the maintenance work. When the plaintiff asked defendants 3 and 4 to vacate the house, they promised to vacate the house after obtaining another house for their residence; subsequently, defendants 1 and 2, however, asserted that they were not prepared to vacate the house. The suit had therefore, to be filed apprehending that defendants 1 and 2 would prevent the plaintiff from taking the income from the property and residing in the house.

(3.) The contentions raised by the 2nd defendant that it was not true that the plaint property belonged exclusively to the plaintiff; that the allegation in the plaint that the plaintiff purchased the property in court auction, and that she took delivery thereof through court, and put up a house therein were all baseless and false; that the property was purchased in court auction by the late Paithal Nambiar, father of the plaintiff and defendants 1 to 3 and husband of the 4th defendant, utilising his own funds in the name of the plaintiff, who was his eldest daughter, as his benami, that at the time of the purchase, the plaintiff was only aged 18 or 19 years; that the purchase price of the property was not paid by the plaintiff; that on the death of the said Paithal Nambiar, the right to the property passed to the plaintiff, the defendants, and Indira and Prema, who were daughters of his predeceased daughter Ammu; that after the death of the said Paithal Nambiar the property was being managed and maintained by the 4th defendant, mother of the plaintiff and defendants 1 to 3 on behalf of herself and the other sharers.