K A SELVANACHI Vs. S R SEKAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal arises from a suit brought by the first respondent for declaration of his title to a house, more fully described in the plaint schedule. The Trial Court decreed the suit and that decree was affirmed in appeal. The present appeal is by defendants 2 and 3, who have purchased the property from defendant No.1.

(2.) There is no dispute about the fact that the suit schedule property all along stood in the name of the mother of the plaintiff, who is defendant No.1. The site had been purchased in her name, the building plan had been sanctioned in her name and all taxes were shown in the records as having been paid by her. Her husband, the father of the plaintiff, was an employee of the Government. He also had ancestral properties.

(3.) The plaintiff, his two brothers and their father entered into a partition under a registered deed dated 19.2.1969, in which it was stated that though the house stood in the name of the mother, it in fact belonged to the father and that that property was being allotted to the share of the father. The mother had attested the document, but was not a party to the same. There is nothing in the document to show that she had knowledge of its contents. Almost twelve years later, in the year 1981, an unregistered document was drawn up, described as a family arrangement, to which the plaintiff, his two brothers and their father were parties, wherein it was stated that the plaintiff had sent a notice making certain claims and in order to resolve the dispute raised by him the family arrangement was being entered into under which the plaint schedule property was being allotted to the share of the plaintiff. That document was not registered. After that document was drawn up, the plaintiff attempted to have the title of the property transferred to his name. But that request was rejected by the letter dated 8.8.1981, marked as Ex.B-11. Thereafter, the plaintiff does not appear to have made any effort to assert title to the property. Though the plaintiff, in the course of his deposition, claimed that the tenant had been paying rents to him, no documents were produced to substantiate that assertion.