DADA BHAU NILKANTH GURAV Vs. SHANKAR SANTU GURAV

JUDGEMENT

(1.) After the appeal was heard at length, an unreported judgment of a Division Bench of this Court, to which I was a party, was brought to my notice and it is now not disputed before me that the question involved in this appeal is fully covered by the said judgment. However all that I am required to State in this appeal are the facts and the nature of the question involved.

(2.) Facts are very simple : One Santu, who died in the year 1904, had two sons Bhau and Shankar. Bhau died in the year 1917 leaving behind his widow Krishnabai. Shankar is defendant No. 1 in these proceedings. Shankar has two sons Gajanan and Manohar, who are defendants Nos. 2 and 3 respectively before me. It is a finding recorded by the courts below that Bhau and Shankar were joint and hence it could be safely said that upon the death of Bhau, the entire property belonging to the joint family passed on to Shankar by survivorship. Krishnabai could have, as per the law then existing, only a right of maintenance out of the joint family property. Complications, however, arose by virtue of the adoption by Krishnabai in the year 1958 of the present plaintiff. She adopted him on 3-7-1958. Krishnabai died on 3-9-1964. After her death the present suit was filed by the plaintiff-adopted son, on 30th April, 1970 for his half share in the suit property, which consists of agricultural lands and a house. The agricultural lands were sufficiently described in the plaint, but in respect of the house no description was given. All that was mentioned was that it was a house in the Gavthan of the village. Defendant No. 4 was impleaded as party defendant because it was the plaintiffs contention that one of the suit properties, R.S. No. 248, had been sold by defendants No. 1 to defendant No. 4 without any legal necessity. The contention, therefore, was that the alienation was not binding upon the plaintiff.

(3.) Defendant Nos. 1 to 3 resisted the suit on various grounds but we are not now concerned with all of them in this appeal because all those contentions of the defendants have been negatived by both the courts below and Mrs. Gokhale, the learned Advocate appearing for the defendants, has rightly not pressed into service those contentions as the same were devoid of any substance.