GUDIVADA SANKARA RAO Vs. GUDIVADA VENKATA RAMANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The 2nd defendant in O.S. No. 37 of 1995 on the file of the learned III Additional District Judge, Visakhapatnam is the appellant. He feels aggrieved by the preliminary decree passed by the trial Court on 28.07.2000. For the sake of convenience, the parties are referred to as arrayed in the suit.

(2.) One late Gudivada Appanna has undertaken the activity of ship breaking and has acquired quite a good number of movable and immovable properties in and around Visakhapatnam. He had three sons, viz., Venkata Ramana, first plaintiff, Appala Naidu and China Venkata Ramana. After the death of Appanna, his third son got separated from the family on being employed elsewhere. The other two brothers i.e., first plaintiff and Appala Naidu remained joint though not as family but as partnership. A deed of partnership was also executed between them. Subsequently, the sons of the plaintiff, being plaintiffs 2 to 4 and sons of Appala Naidu, defendants 1 to 6 joined partnership. Defendant No. 7 is the wife and defendants 8 and 9 are the daughters of Appala Naidu.

(3.) Plaintiffs filed O.S. No. 136 of 1987 in the Court of Principal Subordinate judge, Visakhapatnam for partition. Thereafter, it was transferred to the Court of III Additional District Judge, Visakhapatnam and was re-numbered as O.S. No. 37 of 1995. According to them, though a semblance of partition has taken place in the year 1974, by executing a document, it was not acted upon and all the suit schedule properties remained joint They prayed for partition and separate possession of the properties according to their respective shares and entitlement.