INDER NARAYAN Vs. RUPNARAYAN PANDIT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by the plaintiff in a partition suit, from the judgment of dismissal on the ground that some 15 years before the suit there was already a severance of the status of jointness between the plaintiff on the one side and the rest of the joint family, i.e., his father and brother (defendant No. 1), on the other. Accordingly, the trial Court held that defendant No. 1 continued in a state of jointness and excluded the plaintiff, who on the date of his father's death was separate. Besides defendant -respondent No. 1, the only other successor to the estate of their father, the plaintiff has also impleaded the defendant -respondent No. 2, wife of defendant No. 1, because he claims that the sum of Rs. 50,000 gifted by his rather to her some months before his death was really no gift but a holding in benami, which must accordingly be treated as part of the property to be partitioned.

(2.) THE suit, as well as the appeal, have been fought elaborately, with the unrelenting keenness of a civil war; but the problems that arise for decision are comparatively simple and can be formulated thus :

(3.) WHETHER the gift of Rs. 50,000 made by Dr. Pandit to his daughter -in -law (defendant No. 2) and completed by handing over to her the deposit receipt was really a gift or was only a device to evade possible income -tax claims and thus tin1 amount continued to be part of the said Dr. Pandit's estate on the date of his death.