DUBAGUNTA SUBRAMANYAM Vs. KANUKOLLU BHAVANARAYANA RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff is the appellant. He instituted O.S. No. 76 of 1945 in the Subordinate Judge's Court, Bezwada, for possession of 400 square yards of site in Vijiawada town. The material facts may be briefly stated. The father of defendants 1 and 2 and his brothers had 3,400 square yards, of site in Vijiawada, and in the family partition, their branch got 1,800 square yards. On 3rd January, 1931, the father, Chandrasekhara Rao, conveyed 400 out of 1,800 square yards to his daughter, 1st defendant, under Exhibit P-3 in discharge of a debt due to her. The plaintiff acquired title to these 400 square yards under Exhibit P-1, dated 9th May, 1945, having paid a consideration of Rs. 3,200. It is the case of the plaintiff that subsequent to the sale in his favour, he obtained possession of the property and when he was making arrangements to construct a house thereon, the 3rd defendant, alleging to be a tenant under the 2nd defendant, caused obstruction and necessitated him to file this suit, which has given rise to this appeal. The 1st defendant supported the case of the plaintiff.

(2.) The suit was resisted by the 2nd defendant, his defence, inter alia, being that the property being an ancestral one, the father had no right to convey to his daughter, that the sale in the latter's favour was not supported by consideration, and lastly that, in any event, he prescribed title to the property by being in continuous and uninterrupted possession adverse to the 1st defendant. The trial Court found that the property was the self-acquisition of Chandrasekhara Rao and as such the conveyance in favour of 1st defendant was valid and even otherwise the sale evidenced by Exhibit P-3 was fully supported by consideration. He also found against the 2nd defendant on the plea of limitation reaching the conclusion that the and defendant was not in possession of this property, and that on the other hand it was the plaintiff's vendor that was in enjoyment of the suit property. In the result, he decreed the suit. On appeal, the District Judge came to the opposite conclusion on all the points and reversed the decree of the trial Court, and dismissed the suit.

(3.) In this appeal all the findings of the learned appellate Judge are canvassed. In support of the appeal it is first contended by Mr. Narasaraju that the suit site was the self-acquisition of Chandrasekhara Rao which is borne out by several of the documents which were overlooked by the lower appellate Court. The first point for consideration therefore is, whether the suit site was het self-acquired property of Chandrasekhara Rao or not. Before I refer to the relevant documents, it is useful to refer to the acquisition of the vacant site in Vijiawada whereof the suit site forms a part and how the property in question passed on to the vendor of the plaintiff. Chandrasekhara Rao had four brothers, by name, Rajarathnam, Suryanarayana, Venkatachalam and Buchiraju, the latter having died even prior to the acquisition of the site. It appears from the evidence that the purchase was only for the benefit of the three brothers-Chandrasekhara Rao, Rajarathnam and Suryanarayana. It may be also mentioned that neither Venkatachalam nor the children of Butchiraju put forward any claim to this property.