GANESA NAICKER Vs. KOKILAMBAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE respondents filed an application for passing of final decree which was ordered and the revision petitioners are before this Court aggrieved by the said order.

(2.) RESPONDENTS 1 and 2 filed O.S. No.96 of 1971 for partition of their 71/225th shares. The first respondent herein is the widow of one Gopalakrishna Naicker and the second respondent is her daughter. One Govindasamy Naicker, who was the first defendant, had two sons. One was the aforesaid Gopalakrishna Naicker and the other, the first petitioner herein. He also had two daughters, who are the third respondent herein and one Sivakami Ammal, whose daughter is the fourth respondent. The fifth respondent is the purchaser of one item of the suit property. The aforesaid Govindasamy Naicker, the deceased first defendant and his two sons constituted a Joint Hindu Family. From out of the income of this joint family nucleus, the other properties were purchased. The husband of the first respondent died in January, 1966, leaving as his heirs as per the Hindu Succession Act, respondents 1 and 2 and his mother, Devi Ammal. The said Devi Ammal died in August, 1970, survived by her husband, the first defendant, her other son, the first petitioner herein and two daughters. After the death of her husband, the first respondent was ill-treated and it became impossible for her to live in the joint family. RESPONDENTS 1 and 2 issued a notice dated 18.9.1967 seeking partition. A reply was sent to this notice by the deceased first defendant denying the claim made by respondents 1 and 2. The suit was filed. The suit property consists of nanja lands and house sites as well as punja lands, totalling about 25 acres in Vengambakkam Village, Chengalpet Taluk. The suit was hotly contested.

(3.) THE scope of supervisory jurisdiction has been dealt with in various decisions. THE power under Article 227 must be exercised with restraint and only for the purpose of keeping the subordinate courts and tribunals within the bounds of their authority, especially when - (i) the court or tribunal has assumed a jurisdiction which it does not have, (ii) has failed to exercise a jurisdiction which it does have, such failure occasioning a failure of justice, and (iii) the jurisdiction though available is being exercised in a manner which tantamounts to overstepping the limits of jurisdiction, and not for correcting mere errors. To interfere with the impugned order under Article 227, it is not enough for the petitioners to establish that the court might, on the same materials, have passed a different order. "It is only where the decision exceeds the generous ambit within which reasonable disagreement is possible, and is, in fact, plainly wrong", to use the words in 1948 (1) All E.R. 343 [Bellenden vs. Satterthwaite] or when the order involves miscarriage of justice, that we can interfere.