KOTTAPALLI VCNKATESWARLU Vs. KOTTA-PALLI BAPAYYA AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Plaintiff has preferred the above appeal against the decree of dismissal passed by the Subordinate Judge's Court of Guntur in O. S. No. 118 of 1949.

(2.) THE following pedigree would be useful in appreciating the contentions raised in the appeal; Venkayya, Bapayya, Tirupatayya and Raghavayya are the sons of Narasayya. They effected a partition of the family properties in the year 1937. In that partition the property mentioned in the plaint schedule was allotted to the share of the third brother Tirupatayya. Ramayya, the 2nd Defendant, is the natural son of the 1st Defendant but was adopted by Venkayya, the eldest of the four brothers. The Plaintiff is the son of the last of the brothers Raghavayya. On 17th of February, 1941, Tirupatayya executed a will (Exhibit B -1) giving his wife Tulasamma a life -interest in one acre of land and 30 square yards of site.

(3.) DEFENDANTS 1, 2 and 4 in a common written statement contended inter alia that Raghavayya, one of the legatees under the will of Tirupatayya, committed suicide in November, 1941, by drowning himself in the river Krishna and he did not survive the testator and therefore the legacy lapsed to the legatees. Defendants 3 and 5 contended that the 3rd Defendant was not necessary party to the suit, that the 5th Defendant purchased item 8 along with some other property of Defendants 1 and 2 from one Punnaiah, who himself purchased the property from Defendants 1 and 2. The 5th Defendant claimed that he was a bona fide purchaser for value without notice of the rights of the Plaintiff. The 6th Defendant, who was subsequently added by an order dated the 2nd of December, 1949, pleaded that the Plaintiff had to prove' that Raghavayya survived the testator and that the legacy did not lapse. He also claimed that himself and his vendor were bona fide purchasers for value without notice.