SUSAMA RANA Vs. SEPHALI RANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Court has heard the learned Advocates for the respective parties and has considered the relevant materials on record. The facts of the case, briefly, are as follows:

(2.) One Sudhangshu Sekhar Rana filed Title Suit No. 72 of 1992 against one Sibsankar Rana (predecessor-in-interest of the appellants) and the respondent Nos. 4 and 5 (defendant Nos. 2 and 3 respectively). Such suit was placed before the learned 1st Munsif's Court at Diamond Harbour. In such suit the original plaintiff prayed for a decree for declaration that the said plaintiff has right, title and interest and possession in the suit property and the defendants do not have any such right, title and interest in the suit property. The original plaintiff also prayed for a decree for permanent injunction, inter alia, restraining the defendants from dispossessing the plaintiff from the suit property. In short, the case of the plaintiff was that the plaintiff had deputed his wife, the defendant No. 3, to purchase the suit properties in the name of the plaintiff and the plaintiff provided the money for the same but sometime in the year 1992 the plaintiff came to learn that the deeds by which the suit properties were purchased have recorded the names of the defendant Nos. 1 and 2 or the defendant No. 1 alone or the defendant No. 2 alone as purchasers of the suit properties and the said deeds were in between the period 1968 to 1985. The plaintiffs' case was that he had reposed complete faith on the defendant No. 3, his wife, but committing a breach of trust and/or practising fraud upon the plaintiff, the said deeds have shown the defendants, either the defendant No. 1 or the defendant No. 2 or both of them together, as purchasers. According to the original plaintiff, the defendant Nos. 1 and 2 do not have any right, title and interest in the said properties as the purchase money was provided by the plaintiff and the properties were purchased at points of time when the said defendant Nos. 1 and 2 were minors and the said minors had no source of income. The original plaintiff had also pleaded that he was also occupying the suit properties by way of adverse possession openly and adversely to all concerned.

(3.) The defendant No. 1 filed a written statement and contested the said suit by denying the material allegations made in the plaint and according to the said defendant, the suit is barred under the provisions of Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988 and the said property was purchased by the said defendant from the amount of money that the said defendant was given at the time of certain ceremony and/or ritual when the said defendant was an infant. According to the defendant No. 1 whose heirs are now the appellants, the plaintiff never purchased the suit property. It appears that the defendant Nos. 2 and 3 filed a written statement separately and the said defendant Nos. 2 and 3 stated therein that due to the ailing health of the original plaintiff and considering the interest of the defendants in the suit, the properties were purchased in the name of the defendant Nos. 1 and/or 2 through different deeds.