MALTI DEVI Vs. PHOOL CHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a dependent's Second Appeal in a suit for partition. The appellant was the third defendant in the suit, and the appeal from the preliminary decree is confined to the claim made on her behalf that she is entitled to a provision being made for the payment of the sum of Rs. 11,600 by the joint family before the division of its property among the separating coparceners. The following are the relevant facts : - -

(2.) THE plaintiff and the defendants Nos. 1 and 2, who are respectively respondents Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in the Second Appeal in this Court, are the sons of Sri Shyam Lal. The third respondent, who was the second defendant, is the defendant appellant's husband. According to the plaintiff, the three brothers were living and messing separately, although in separate portions of the same ancestral house, and that the father Sri Shyam Lal died on the 6th Judy, 1959, and after him the management of the joint family property, namely, the three houses specified m Schedule to the plaint, came to be vested in the first defendant; but, because of apathy of the members of the family, the property was not being managed properly and it was necessary to have a partition between the brothers. Paragraph 1 of the plaint specifies certain disputes between the brothers. Clauses (i) to (vii) thereof relate to certain disputes between the brothers about property No. B of Schedule I, Clauses (viii) and (ix), which are relevant for the purposes of the present appeal, run as under : - -

(3.) THE first defendant denied the plaint allegations on this point in these words : - -