PANDURANGAN Vs. SARANGAPANI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This second appeal has been filed by the plaintiff in O.S No. 69 of 1970 in the court of the Additional Subordinate Judge, Pondicherry. He filed a suit for a declaration that the sale deed executed in favour of the first defendant and subsequently the sale deed executed by the first defendant in favour of the second defendant are null and void. The suit properties originally belonged to the plaintiff's ancestors. The plaintiff's father got them under a partition-dated 31-1-1922, marked as Ex. A-f. The plaintiff's father, who is not a party to the suit, executed a sale deed in favour of the first defendant on 6-1-1969, marked as Ex. A-12. The first defendant is none other than the brother-in-law of the plaintiff. In other words, the first defendant has married the plaintiff's sister. The sale deed was thus executed by the plaintiff's father in favour of his son-in-law. The first defendant executed a sale deed in favour of the second defendant. The case of the plaintiff was that his father was a person of unsound mind and that the sale deed in favour of the first defendant having been executed when he was a person of unsound mind conveyed no title to the first defendant and that the first defendant in turn cannot sell the properties in favour of the second defendant.

(2.) The defendants took up the stand that the plaintiff had no locus standi to question the alienation, that his father was the absolute owner of the properties and that he could deal with it in the best manner possible. They disputed that the plaintiff's father was of unsound mind and therefore incapable of executing the document in favour of the first defendant.

(3.) The trial court, after framing relevant issues, came to the conclusion that the first defendant purchased the properties from his father-in-law without valid consideration and knowing that he was a lunatic, that the sale deed in his favour was, therefore, null and void and that the second defendant was not a bona fide purchaser for valid consideration. In the result, the suit was decreed as prayed for by the plaintiff.