ANNUBAI GANAPATI NALUGADE Vs. DNYANU TUKA NALUGADE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question involved in this second appeal is fully covered by the two judgements of the Supreme Court. The first one reported in AIR 1982 SC 887 (Nagesh Bisto Desai v. Khando Tirmal Desai) and AIR 1984 SC 1121 (Anant Kibe v. Purushottam Rao). In fact both these judgements approve and affirm the judgement of Full Bench of this Court reported in (1977) 79 Bom LR 234 (Laxmibai Sadashiv Date v. Ganesh Shankar Date).

(2.) It is unnecessary to state the facts of the case in detail because they have been set out quite sufficiently in the judgement of both the Courts below. They may be very briefly stated here in order to formulate the question involved here. The suit lands were the original sanadi inam lands. The original vatandar in whose favour the inam was given by the relevant vathukums had (sic) within the suit lands of impartable character, inheritable only by the leneal primogeniture. It appears that the plaintiff was in possession of the lands by virtue of the rule of primogeniture. Later on the inams stood abolished by virtue of Merged Territories Miscellaneous Alienations Abolition Act, 1955. According to the plaintiff he paid the occupancy price as per the provisions of Inam Act and according to it the lands were regranted to him by the Government. On that basis he filed a suit for perpetual injunction restraining the defendants who claim to be his co-sharers from interfering with his possession to the suit lands. The defence was that the regrant was received by him on behalf of the joint family of the plaintiff and the defendants and that the occupancy price was paid by him out of the income of the joint family. It was further contended that he was not in exclusive possession of the suit lands but that the defendants were also in joint possession of the same. The trial Court held that the plaintiff was in possession of the suit lands but it also held that after the abovementioned Inam Abolition Act of 1955, the lands ceased to be impartible lands. According to them, the lands were always joint family property but by virtue of the provisions of sanad in question they were impartible and further by virtue of the several laws of primogeniture made applicable to such lands, the eldest son of the deceased vatandar was shown to be the inamdar. According to defendants these features did not go with joint family character of the suit lands.

(3.) The trial Court more or less accepted the plaintiffs plea that he was in possession of the suit lands but followed the judgement of a learned single Judge (Kamat, J.) of this Court, reported in (1972) 74 Bom LR 290 : (1972 0 CrLJ 1564) and held that upon abolition of the inam, the joint family characters of the suit lands were restored to their dormant features of partibility and survivorship. He therefore held that all the parties i.e. plaintiff and the relevant defendants were having share in the suit lands and that, hence, the plaintiff was not entitled to the injunction. The suit was therefore dismissed by him.