PRATHIPATI SURYANARAYANA Vs. PRATHIPATI SESHAYYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a revision petition presented against the decision of the Additional District Munsif of Guntur in which he held that the plaintiff's suit bad not been properly valued. He held that ad valorem Court-fee on the value of the property claimed must be paid.

(2.) Now the value of the suit is to be ascertained from the plaint and the plaint sets out that the suit is one for partition. It is brought by the plaintiff, the younger brother of the 1 defendant. The 3 defendant is the undivided son of the 1st, and the 4 and 5 defendants, the sons of the 2nd defendant. According to the plaint, in the year 1912 it was arranged that a division should take place and certain vessels and working utensils were divided out into three equal shares. The 1 defendant had been the manager of the joint family and he was apparently unwilling to divide the rest of the property, moveables and immoveables. The plaintiff has admittedly collected and applied to his own use certain rents from the family land, and it is alleged that the 1 defendant has done the same thing with regard to granting cowles of other portions of the family land which the plaintiff says the 1 defendant is liable to account for. The said lands are in the management of the first defendant and in the constructive possession of this plaintiff. The learned Additional District Munsif says that Having regard to the claim for rendition of accounts and for the recovery of past profits, it cannot be said that the plaintiff is in joint possession and enjoyment of the suit properties.

(3.) This I am unable to follow. The allegation is clearly that the lands and some of the moveables have remained undivided and that the plaintiff, with regard to the land that has been leased by the 1 defendant, is in constructive possession thereof, which can only mean to my mind that he is in possession as a tenant-in- common the division in status of the joint family having, as stated, taken place in 1912.