KAVERI AND ORS. Vs. GANGA RATNA AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) DEFENDANTS 1; 5, 6 and 7 are the appellants in this appeal which is directed against the preliminary decree of the Court of the Subordinate Judge of South Kanara in O.S. No. 152 of 1950, by which partition of the plaint schedule properties into 75, 74, 112 shares and the allotment of the number of shares mentioned in paragraph 12 of the judgment to the various groups therein, were directed. Defendants 1 and 5 to 7 are entitled thereunder to get 471, 172 shares out of the total number of shares aforesaid whereas the plaintiffs get 7,24,880 shares out of the aforesaid shares.

(2.) AT the very outset one has to marvel at the phenomenally large number of shares into which the properties are to be divided and the allotment of the various shares to the respective sharers. It is stated that this state of things is the necessary result of the working of the Madras Aliyasantana Act, 1949 (Madras Act IX of 1949) by which the division of the properties is to be in a very complicated manner. It would require the skill of statisticians and mathematicians to work out the figures properly and in our opinion it is high time that the legislature intervenes to prevent this intriguing situation.

(3.) IN the learned Subordinate Judge's opinion, the contention that Exhibit B -I is an instrument of partition deserves to be unceremoniously brushed aside as under that document it is declared in more than one place that the distribution of properties was brought about not to effect division in status in the family but only for the convenience of enjoyment of the various properties. In another place in the document it is stated that it was not to be construed as an instrument of partition. For these and other reasons the lower Court negatived the defendants' plea that under Exhibit B -1 there had been a partition not only in status but by actual metes and bounds.