CHIDAMBARGAUDA RAMCHANDRAGAUDA DESAI Vs. CHANNAPPA MAHALINGAPPA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Although the record of this group of appeals is voluminous, there are only three points for decision. There is no dispute as regards the main facts, which are briefly as follows. The plaintiffs in the main suit No. 437 of 1923, from which F.A. Nos. 307 and 479 of 1928 arise, and auction-purchasers of the interests of the first two branches of the Bahadur Desai family of Agadi in the Karasgi taluka of the Dharwar District represented by defendants Nos. 1 to 12. Defendants Nos. 13 to 15 are the representatives of the mortgagees under Ex. 200 of 1870. They say that the mortgage was finally paid off in 1918-19. They are merely pro forma defendants. The remaining defendants are other auction-purchasers. The contending defendants are Nos. 1 to 3 representing the first branch of the Desai family.

(2.) In 1791 A.D. the Peshva granted the village of Agadi to Lingangauda, ancestor of defendants Nos. 1 to 12, in consideration of his having been deprived of his watan by Tippoo, who overran the Carnatic towards the close of the eighteenth century. There were four main branches of Lingangauda's descendants, and in 1857 there was an award between them, subsequent to which they held as tenants-in-common, as the property was not divided by metes and bounds.

(3.) The management of the village was in the hands of the two elder branches, and in 1870 Hanmantgauda and Basangauda, the representatives of the two elder branches, mortgaged their share to the ancestors of defendants Nos. 13 to 15, who were jahagirdars of a village in Dharwar but resided at Cawnpore. This mortgage is Ex. 200, dated October 25, 1870, for Rs. 60,000, and was a possessory; mortgage for forty-one years to be paid, off by annual instalments. The estate is a very large one for this part of the country, and possession was given by making the tenants attorn to the mortgagees who were represented by a local agent.