B SORNAM Vs. P R KADIRVEL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The fourth defendant is the appellant herein. The suit was laid for partition of plaintiff's , share in the suit property. The Trial Court dismissed the suit whereas the first appellate Court allowed the appeal and granted a preliminary decree of partition to the first respondent/plaintiff for 1/4th share of the suit property. Aggrieved by the decree of the first appellate court, the fourth defendant has come forward with this appeal. Narrative convenience seeks that parties be referred to by their rank before the trial Court.

(2.) Admitted facts are:

(3.) The controversy: In the backdrop of the above said facts, the plaintiff has come forward with the present suit contending that the suit property is ancestral in character in the hands of the first defendant; that he along with defendants 2 and 3 have equal share in the suit property; that he demanded his father to partition the properties; that on 06-08-1996, when he attempted to effect division of the suit property with the concurrence of his brothers, who are arrayed as the defendants 2 and 3, the fourth defendant obstructed the same contending that she has purchased the property. The fourth defendant, however, would not divulge how she derived title to the property. The first defendant, as the Kartha of the family has no power to alienate the ancestral property except for dire family necessities, that the joint family has been free from debts and that it does not require alienation of an ancestral property and if there is any alienation in the manner the fourth defendant contends, the same is void and it does not bind the shares of other coparceners.