K K PALANISAMY GOUNDER Vs. AMIRTHAMMAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Letters Patent appeal is directed against the judgment and decree of the learned Single Judge holding that some of A-schedule properties are not joint family properties.

(2.) The defendants are the appellants herein and the respondent Amirthammal is the plaintiff in the suit. She filed the suit for partition claiming 1/6th share in A-schedule properties and 1/12th share in B-schedule properties. In this appeal, we are concerned only with the properties covered in Exs.A-1, A-4 and A-9 which were subject matter of partition between the father of the plaintiff Kandasami Gounder and his brothers by a document of the year 1936, marked as Ex.B-1. The case of the plaintiff is that those properties covered in Exs.A-1, A-4 and A-9 are the separate properties of her paternal grandmother Kandalkal, mother of Kandasami Gounder and though those properties were subject matter in the family partition made in the year 1936 between Kandasami Gounder and his brothers, the properties continued to be the separate properties of Kandasami Gounder to whom the properties were allotted and they were not treated as joint family properties and therefore, as separate properties of Kandasami Gounder, she is entitled to a share in the properties. The defendants resisted the suit on the ground that they were joint family properties.

(3.) Both the trial Court and the learned Single Judge found that the properties covered in Exs.A-1, A-4 and A-9 were separate properties of Kandasami Gounder, though those properties were subject matter of partition in the year 1936 under Ex.B-1. Learned Single Judge held that the character of the properties did not get merged with the character of joint family properties and they continued to be the separate properties Kandasami Gounder and on the death of Kandasami Gounder, the plaintiff would be entitled to 1/6th share. In this appeal, we are concerned, as earlier stated, only with the question whether the plaintiff is entitled to 1/6th share in the properties covered in Exs.A-1, A-4 and A-9.