TURSI RAM Vs. BASDEO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants before us were the defendants party No. 1 in the Court below. The plaintiffs in the suit are now the Respondent No. 1 and his minor son Ramgopal. They brought the suit out of which this appeal has arisen, for the partition of property, moveable and immovable, on the allegation that they and the defendants first party formed a joint Hindu family subject to the Mitakshara law and that it had been found impossible for the plaintiffs to live with the defendants jointly.

(2.) The pedigree, set forth as a part of the plaint, will show that one Bansidhar had three sons, Tursi Ram, Defendant No. 1, (now one of the appellants), Makkhan Lal and Basdeo (Plaintiff No. 1 and one of the respondents). It was the plaintiffs case that Makkhan Lal separated from the family during the lifetime of his father Bansidhar and had ceased to do anything with the family, the rest of the family continued joint and on the death of Bansidhar the family property belonged jointly and equally to the two branches of Tursi Ram and Basdeo. The defendants party No. 1 wore Tursi Ram and his son; the defendant party No. 2 was Mt. Anandi, the widow of Daulat Ram, a deceased son of Tursi Ram. The defendants third party were made proforma defendants and it was alleged that they had nothing to do with the family property. They had, however, a share in some of the khatas of zamindari property in which the plaintiffs and the defendants first party owned share.

(3.) The defence of the defendants first party, who alone contested the suit, was that the family had separated at the time Makkhan Lal separated and that nothing was joint between the parties. They also said that most of the moveable properties were the self-acquisition of the defendants party.