ARTA NAIK Vs. BALAKRISHNA NAIK AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal, by the Plaintiff, arises out of a suit for partition.

(2.) PLAINTIFF and Defendant No. 1 are the sons of Defendant No. 2. The Plaintiff's case was that the properties described in schedules' A', 'B' and 'C' were the joint family properties of the parties and he was entitled to one -third share in the same. Defendant No. 1 claimed the 'B' schedule property as his self -acquisition. The trial Court passed a preliminary decree for partition of one -third share of the Plaintiff in all the three schedules. On appeal the learned Additional Subordinate Judge held that the 'B' schedule properties were the self -acquired properties of Defendant No. 1 and were not liable to partition. He directed that the one -third share of Defendant No. 2 in the 'C' schedule properties should be allotted to Defendant No. 3 Nayan Dei, the wife of Defendant No. 1, on account of her purchase from Defendant No. 2. Accordingly he modified the decree passed by the trial Court. Aggrieved by the decision of the appellate Court with regard to the 'B' schedule property, the Plaintiff has come up in appeal to this Court.

(3.) THE principles governing the determination of the question whether a particular property standing in the name of a member of a joint Hindu family is his self acquired property or joint family property are well settled. There is no presumption that" a Hindu family, merely because it is joint, possesses any joint property. Hindu Law does not prohibit a member of a joint family from acquiring any property for his own benefit. Unless it can be shown that the property was acquired with the aid of the joint family, the property so acquired by an individual member does not become joint family property. The burden of proving that any particular item of property is joint, primarily rests on the Plaintiff. But where it is established that there was nucleus of joint family property and that nucleus was such as did or might have contributed to the property claimed to be self -acquired, the onus shifts on to the person who claims the property as sell requisition to affirmatively establish that the property was acquired without any aid from the joint family. I may only refer to the case of Mudigowda Cowdappa Sankh and Ors. v. Ramchandra Revgowda Sankh : A.I.R. 1969 SC. 1076, where their Lordships of the Supreme Court laid down the law in the following terms: