S A ANGA NAICKER Vs. S A PONNUSAMI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal has been filed by the first defendant in O. S. No. 592 of 1974 in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Coimbatore. The plaintiff by name Ponnuswami and defendants 1 and 2 by name Anga Naicker and Chinnaswamy are brothers. The third defendant, Ranganayaki Ammal is their sister. The fourth defendant by name Palaniammal is the wife of the second defendant. Ponnuswami, the plaintiff filed the present suit for partition of the plaint schedule properties into four equal shares and for allotment of one such share to him. The father of the plaintiff and defendants 1 to 3 was one Anga Naicker, who had a wife by name Angammal. The father Anga Naicker died on 21st August, 1961, and his wife on 18th June, 1969. The case of the plaintiff was that he was employed in the Special Armed Police getting a salary of Rs. 200 per month till about .1950. that he was sending Rs. 100 to his parents during his period of service and that thereafter he got out of the service and he returned to Coimbatore and assisted his parents. His father who had some ancestral lands, was doing a business in "gunpowder", which is really a business in explosives used for blasting the earth for excavation of wells. The mother was said to have been doing a business in cotton. There were some savings from these businesses, which were invested in a Bank and on its liquidation it (the Bank) transferred to Angammal 13 acre and 70 cents of land in a village called Neelikonampalayam, which is adjacent to Singanallur to which the parties belonged. Apart from the dry and wet lands, there was a business in running a cinema theatre, which was stated to have been yielding a substantial income. There were also said to be outstandings due to the family, which were traceable to the properties belonging to the family. The plaintiff, therefore, claimed that in the properties described in the several schedules to the plaint, he was entitled to an one-fourth share.

(2.) THE second defendant filed a written statement in which he contended that as far as the cinema business was concerned it did not belong to the family and that it was the joint property of the first defendant and himself. He denied that the family had anything to do with the properties and the outstandings standing in the name of the fourth defendant, his wife.

(3.) THE first question that arises for consideration in the present appeal is whether the theatre business belongs to the joint family or it is the separate property of the first defendant. We may trace the history of this business as shown by the relevant exhibits, before going into the other aspects involved in determining this point.