CHELLAMMAL Vs. VALLIAMMAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE defendants are the appellants. The appeal arises out of a suit for declaration of title in respect of the suit properties, for permanent injunction in respect of one item and for recovery of possession and other reliefs in respect of another.

(2.) THE plaintiff and the first defendant are the widows of one Kandaswami gounder who died on 18-9-1942. He had no issue. He left considerable irnmoveable properties in the shape of agricultural lands. The case of the plaintiff has been that even in the year 1943 there had been a final partition of the properties by metes and bounds between the two widows by mutual consent, that in the said partition the suit properties fell to her (plaintiff's)share, that in respect of one of the suit properties (item 2 of first schedule) the second defendant who is no other than Kandaswami Gounder's brother's son became a tenant under the plaintiff and that as the second defendant failed to pay the rent and began disputing her title along with the first defendant, the suit was necessitated. It is under Ex. A-1 dated 12-2-1964, the second defendant became a lessee of one of the suit properties under the plaintiff, but within five months thereafter, that is, under Ex. A-5, dated 13-7-1964, the first defendant purported to gift to the second defendant an undivided half share in the properties left by her late husband, Kandaswami Gounder. The second defendant, by virtue of the above settlement deed disputed his lessor's (plaintiff's) title contending that he had 'become the owner of an undivided half share in the suit properties. Only thereafter the suit out of which this second appeal arises came to be filed.

(3.) AS I said, the case of the plaintiff has been that there had been a final partition by metes and bounds by mutual consent between her and the first defendant even in the year 1943 and that in the said partition, the suit properties fell to her share. It is her further case, that by virtue of the Hindu succession Act, 1956, she became the absolute owner of the properties including the suit properties which fell to her share in the above said partition.