GURIJALA SAVITHRI Vs. GURIJALA VENKATESWARA RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Plaintiffs in a suit for partition are the appellants. For the sake of convenience parties to the appeal would hereinafter be referred to as they are arrayed in the trial Court.

(2.) The suit was initially laid against seven defendants. 3rd defendant is the daughter of 2nd defendant. 1st defendant is the husband of the 7th defendant. 4th defendant is the brother of 7th defendant. 6th defendant is the mother of 1st defendant. Consequent upon the death of the 4th defendant, defendants 8 to 12 were brought on record as his legal representatives. 8th defendant also died during the pendency of the suit.

(3.) The case, in brief, of the plaintiffs is that Sitaramaiah (DW2) Sambasivarao (hereinafter referred to as the deceased) and lst defendant are brothers and are the sons of Punnarao and the 6th defendant, and were residents of Kuchipudi Village of the erstwhile Tenali Taluq. They had little or no property. Seetharamayya separated from the rest of the family long back and the other members continued to live as the members of a joint Hindu family. The deceased absconded from his house and used jo stay at Gudivada without any ostensible means of livelihood, and came into contact with the 1st plaintiff, who was brought up by Vallabhaneni Sitaramayya and his wife Bayamma. As the said Vallabhaneni Seetharamayya and Bayamma felt that they can stabilize the deceased by getting him married to the 1st plaintiff, they performed the marriage of the 1st plaintiff with the deceased at Gudivada in their house in 1949. About one year after his marriage with the 1st plaintiff, the deceased vanished and surfaced after four years, and took the 1st plaintiff to Tenali, where they used to stay in the house of Yedla Annapurnamma in Gangannapeta. The deceased used to run a beedi shop and later a cycle shop. Thereafter he started a small 'kaka' hotel. It was at that time that 1st plaintiff came to know about the deceased having another wife by name Venkata Laxmi (2nd defendant) his sister's daughter, who was also living at Tenali, with the parents of the deceased elsewhere. In about 1962 all of them left Tenali and migrated to Guntur. The deceased took the house belonging to Yedla Chalapathi Rao and his wife Venkata Subbamma in the 2nd line, Gunturuvarithota on lease and used to live with 1st plaintiff there, while keeping defendants 1 and 2 and the other members of their family at Railpet. The deceased and 1st defendant started a small coffee hotel, which later became a hotel of repute and was named 'Central Cafe'. With the income realised by them from that business they purchased the building in which they were running Central Cafe in 1965, and have also purchased several other properties i.e., items 1 to 10 and 12 of the plaint schedule and obtained the sale deeds in the names of defendants 2 to 7, benami for their benefit. 5th defendant who is the nephew of the deceased and the 1st defendant was working in the Cenral Cafe. 1st defendant and the deceased took 'Komala vilas', an old Udipi hotel, on the main road on lease and changed its name as Central Cafe. While so 1st plaintiff gave birth to the 1st child of the deceased i.e. the 2nd plaintiff on 12-8-1972 in Padmavathi Nursing Home. 3rd Plaintiff was bom to them on 9-5-1976 at Saint Joseph's Hospital, Guntur. The deceased admitted the 2nd plaintiff in Saint Joseph's Nursery School and had also opened Kiddy Bank accounts in Andhra Bank in the names of plaintiffs 2 and 3. The entire locality where the deceased and plaintiffs stayed treated the deceased and the 1st plaintiff as husband and wife and plaintiffs 2 and 3 as their children. The deceased used to stay with plaintiffs for some time and with defendants 2 and 3 for some time. In fact 1st plaintiff and the 2nd defendant became friends and they used to visit each other's houses. One day the deceased was stabbed by an employee in the hotel and so he died in the hospital on 30-6-1980 while undergoing treatment for the said injuries. Taking advantage of his sudden death and the illiteracy of the 1st plaintiff, defendants 1 to 7 in order to deprive the plaintiffs of their legitimate rights, did not even mention their names in the long list of family members, published in the news papers, mourning the death of the deceased. When the 1st plaintiff questioned the defendants about the same, they, by offering some money, tried their best to persuade her to leave the town without making any claim to the property of the deceased. Hence the suit for partition of their share in the half share of the deceased in the plaint schedule properties.