LAJWANT KAUR Vs. ABNASHI SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Letters Patent Appeal against the judgment of a learned single Judge, dated Aug. 25, 1976, in R. F. A. No. 6 of 1964, by which the plaintiffs' appeal was allowed and the case was remanded to the trial Court for further proceedings in accordance with law.

(2.) Abnashi Singh, Tarlok Singh and their mother Smt. Rajwans Kaur filed a suit for partition of joint properties and for rendition of accounts against Smt. Lajwant Kaur, widow of Bhupinder Singh, and lqbal Singh son of Bhupinder Singh, Bhupinder Singh was brother of Avnashi Singh and Tarlok Singh plaintiffs and their father was Lakha Singh. Bhupinder Singh had died before the institution of the suit.

(3.) In the aforesaid suit, out of which this appeal arises, the plaintiffs stated that Lakha Singh with his sons formed a joint Hindu family of which he was the Karta and after his death, his eldest son Bhupinder Singh took over the family business of printing press under the name and style of Wazir Hind Press, Hall Hazar, Amritsar and after the death of Bhupinder Singh on September 28, 1952, his widow Smt. Lajwant Kaur took over the business and started running the same. Besides this, the joint Hindu family owned house bearing No. 384/7, situate in Kucha Kahan Singh, Amritsar. The plaintiffs claimed partition of the aforesaid properties as a dispute arose between them about the management and control of the family business. It is pleaded that the plaintiffs earlier brought Civil Suit No. 104 of 1953, for a declaration that the property Wazir Hind Press, its assets and liabilities and family house were the properties of the joint Hindu family and for the grant of a permanent injunction restraining Smt. Lajwant Kaur from interfering in the enjoyment by the plaintiffs of the joint Hindu family property including Wazir Hind Press and also restraining her from refusing to allow the plaintiffs from acting as Karta and Manager of the joint family assets. That earlier suit for injunction was decreed by the trial Court on March 31, 1954, but on appeal, a Division Bench of this Court on April 11, 1960, allowed the appeal and dismissed the suit for injunction on the finding that the joint Hindu family had disrupted in 1944 when Avnashi Singh plaintiff had served notice to separate from the Hindu undivided family and, therefore, the declaration sought for that the properties belong to Hindu undivided family could not be granted. The Division Bench specifically observed as follows:-