ABDUL RASHID Vs. SIRAJUDDIN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a plaintiff's appeal and arises out of a suit for a declaration of the plaintiff's right to and for joint possession over the properties detailed at the foot of the plaint. The plaintiff also claimed mesne profits. The parties to the present litigation are descended from a common ancestor named Lal Muhammad. Lal Muhammad died leaving eight sons:

(2.) The eight sons mentioned above died in the years noted against their names. A complete pedigree of the family is to be found at P. 6 of the printed record.

(3.) The plaintiff-appellant before us is one of the sons of Afzal Ali and of the contesting defendants Sirajuddin, defendant 1, is the own brother of the plaintiff- appellant. The other contesting defendants are the heirs of Safdar Ali and Qadir Baksh. Of the eight brothers Nadir Ali and Abdul Latif died issueless. All the persons who were the legal heirs of the eight sons of Lal Mohammad were impleaded as defendants in the suit and most of them admitted the plaintiff's claim. The plaintiff's case was that all the eight sons of Lal Muhammad and their descendants were joint in business and that the various properties in dispute were purchased with joint funds in the names of one or some of the members of the family and that the entire properties acquired up to the year 1916 or 1917 belonged to all the members of the family in accordance with the legal shares enjoined by Mahomedan law and and that, as such, the plaintiff was entitled to the shares claimed by him in the various properties. The plaintiff embraced in the suit his claim to various shares as an heir of his father Afzal Ali, of his uncle Nadir Ali and of certain ladies who had also inherited shares in the various properties. It was common ground that originally various properties were purchased with joint funds in the name of Sabit Ali and that each of the sons of Lal Mohammad had a 1/8 share in the properties so purchased. On the death of Sabit Ali the name of Abdul Wahid, his brother, was recorded as against the properties purchased in the name of Sabit Ali and Abdul Wahid managed those properties on behalf of the whole family. After the death of Sabit Ali in 1882, Abdul Wahid got the names of the sons of Safdar Ali, the names of the sons of Sabit Ali, and his own name, and the names of his remaining five brothers entered against the properties in equal shares, i.e., 1/8 of the properties acquired up to that time were recorded in the name of each branch of the eight sons of Lal Muhammad. The plaintiff alleged that even after 1883 acquisitions used to be made from joint funds for the benefit of all the heirs of Lal Muhammad in the names of one or of other members of the family and that all the heirs of Lal Muhammad were entitled to the properties acquired up to the year 1916 or 1917.