PENTAPATI VENKATRATNAM Vs. KARRI VENKATANARASAYAMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals are from a common judgment of the Court of the District Judge, West Godavari. Appeals Nos. 471/1956 and 302/1957 arise out of O. S. No. 44 of 1950, and appeal No. 231/1960 arises out of O. S. No. 45/1950.

(2.) O. S. No. 44/1950 was originally instituted on 1/10/1944, in the Court of the Special Assistant Agent, Kovvur. After a lapse of about four years, on 31/12/1948, the Special Assistant Agent returned the plaint for presentation to the Agents Court. Pursuant to this order, the suit was transferred to the Agents Court on 17/01/1949. Eventually the suit was transferred from the Agents Court to the Court of the District Judge, West Godavari, where it was numbered as O. S. No. 44 of 1950. The connected suit was originally filed as O. S. No. 2 of 1948 on the file of the Agency Court, and was subsequently transferred to the District Court, West Godavari where it was numbered as O. S. No. 45 of 1950. The two suits were tried together with the consent of the parties. The evidence was recorded in O. S. No. 45 of 1950, and it will be convenient to refer to the ranks of the parties therein, and that was indeed the course adopted by the lower Court.

(3.) The material facts, out of which these appeals have arisen, may be briefly stated: Tirupatirayudu and Gangaraju were brothers. Tirupathirayudu was twice married. Mahalakshmamma was his first wife. She had no issue, male or female. During the life time of Mahalakshmamma, Tirupatirayudu brought to his house his brothers son, Viranna, while he was of a tender age. Thereafter Mahalakshmamma died in or about the year 1905. Tirupatirayudu then married Lachamma, the 1st defendant, immediately after the death of his first wife Mahalakshmamma. Tirupatirayudu died in the year 1929. The plaintiff is the only daughter of Tirupatirayudu by his second wife, Lachamma. Viranna executed a will on 16/05/1942, bequeathing all the plaint schedule properties to his wife, Venkatanarasayamma, and his daughter Mahalakshmamma alias Rajamani, defendants 2 and 3 save an aggregate extent of 24 acres situated in the village of Singanapalli, Pydipaka and Veeravaramlanka, which he bequeathed to the plaintiff. The plaintiff instituted the suit on 1/10/1944, for a declaration that the alleged adoption of Viranna by Tirupatirayudu is neither true nor valid in law and that her rights to the properties comprised in the estate of her father are not in any way affected after the life-time of Lachamma, the widow of Tirupatirayudu.