LALA SARAB SUKH DAS Vs. RAM PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The suit which has given rise to this appeal was instituted by the plaintiff- respondent for the partition of a one third share of certain property, comprising landed property, houses and moveables. The parties are descended from one Sewa Ram, who died about 40 or 45 years ago, leaving two sons, Bhagwan Das and Gobardhan Das. The plaintiff is the grandson of Bhagwan Das. His father, Dharam Das, died in 1904, while Bhagwan Das was alive. One of the defendants was Gobardhan Das who died during the pendency of the suit. The other defendants were the descendants of Bhagwan Das.

(2.) The first question for consideration in this appeal is, whether the property in dispute was joint family property, and whether there had been any partition in the family at or about the time alleged by the defendants.

(3.) The allegation of the plaintiff was that the property in dispute was joint family property and that the defendants were refusing to make a partition. The defendants pleaded that the villages, Ram Dandi and Gher No. 5 mentioned in the schedule attached to the plaint, were waqf property, endowed for the purpose of a temple to be constructed in the latter and that, excepting house No 10, the rest of the property was their separate property. They further pleaded that Bhagwan Das had separated from Gobardhan Das about 40 years ago and that Dharam Das, the father of the plaintiff, had similarly separated from his father, Bhagwan Das, about 20 years later.