B HAGA RAM Vs. PARVEEN KUMER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This regular second appeal by defendant No. 1 Bhaga Ram has been directed against the judgment and decree dated 6.9.1993 of the learned District Judge, Hamirpur, whereby the judgment and decree dated 31.8.1987 of the learned Senior Sub Judge, Hamirpur were set aside and the suit of the plaintiffs (respondents No. 1 and 2) for declaration was decreed.

(2.) The subject matter of the dispute between the parties is the land measuring 8 Kanals 4 Marias, being l/4th share of the land 7, 6, 19, 23, 26, 30, 36 and 284/33 of Tika Tohlwin, specifically detailed in the plaint and hereinafter referred to as the land in dispute.

(3.) One Beli Ram, father of the plaintiffs and respondents No. 3 and 4 was the owner of the land in dispute. He sold the same to defendant No. 1 for Rs. 17,000/- vide registered sale deed dated 18.5.1982. The plaintiffs have assailed such alienation by their father. It is pleaded that the land in dispute was ancestral in the hands of Beli Ram. The plaintiffs and their father are governed by agricultural custom in the matters of alienation and succession according to which the ancestral property cannot be alienated without a legal necessity and consent of the reversioners. It is further pleaded that sale was made by Beli Ram without consideration and legal necessity. The sale consideration as recorded in the sale deed is fictitious. Shri Beli Ram was a debaunch, drunkard, aquanderor, gambler and extravagant and the land in dispute was sold just in order to satisfy his ill habits.