PARAMANAND AGARWAL Vs. PARMESHWAR DAS AGARWAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The dispute begins with even the description of the form of the action. THE plaintiffs and the third defendant claim it to be a partition suit; the first defendant insists that it is not.

(2.) The reliefs claimed in the suit are as follows:

(3.) What emerges from the plaint case and its reflection in the plaintiffs' petition is that there was a complete settlement of family businesses and properties to make a three-way division for the three branches. The plaintiffs do not indicate much grievance in some of the businesses and properties relating thereto remaining joint since the extent of the entitlement of the three groups was spelt out in the memoranda and the attendant papers. The charge in the plaint and the plaintiffs' petition is that the first defendant (there is an insinuation of the third defendant playing along with the first defendant) did not take steps subsequent to the execution of the memoranda to effectuate the settlement and family partnership. The plaintiffs say that the plaintiffs have complied with their side of the bargain but the first defendant has not. The particulars of the breach have been detailed at paragraph 43 of the petition. The underlying sentiment of the petition is that the first defendant (and, may be, the third defendant) did not really intend to give the first plaintiff his due but had induced the plaintiffs into believing that the settlement would be implemented with the ulterior motive of relieving the seventh defendant company, which was primarily to come to the first defendant, of the first plaintiffs uncomfortable presence. Into the forty-fifth paragraph of the petition the plaintiffs assert that in the first and third defendants having committed breach of the essential terms of the family settlement, they had repudiated the settlement recorded in the three memoranda of understanding. The plaintiffs maintain that they have "accepted the repudiation and by a formal letter dated 28th January, 2008 have recorded cancellation of the family settlement." In such letter, addressed by the first plaintiff to both the first and third defendants, the first plaintiff offered to restore the benefits received by him from the joint family funds and requested his two brothers "to undertake valuation of all the family owned, promoted businesses, properties and other valuables and to divide all such assets equally amongst all three brothers."