ALLURI VENKATAPATHI RAJU Vs. DANTULURI VENKATANARASIMHA RAJU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are two consolidated appeals from a decree of the High Court of Judicature at Madras, by which that Court set aside a decree of the Subordinate Judge of Masulipatam dismissing the plaintiffs' suit, and granted a declaration that the plaintiffs would be entitled to succeed, on the death of their mother, to a portion of the estate claimed by them. The principal question, on which elaborate arguments have been advanced by the learned counsel for the parties, is whether the plaintiffs' maternal grandfather was, or was not, joint in estate with the ancestors of the contesting defendants. The relationship of the persons concerned is indicated in the following pedigree: The common ancestor of the parties, Alluri Venkataraju, and his four sons constituted a joint Hindu family governed by the Mitakshara school of Hindu law. They originally resided in Gudimellanka in the Godaveri District of the Madras Presidency, but in or about 1839 the eldest son, Pattabhiramaraju, severed his connexion with the family and went away to another village to earn his livelihood. After his departure Venkataraju and his remaining three sons continued to live together, and it seems that they were still living at Gudimellanka when the father died in 1812. Thereafter the three sons left their ancestral village and moved first to Jangemsavaram, and finally took up their abode at Chintalapalli, where they made their home. While they were living at that place they started business on a large scale, and acquired valuable properties with the profits of the business. On 14 July 1882 Krishnamraju and his son Venkatraghvaraju were drowned in the Godaveri river; and the Courts below have concurred in holding that it was the father who died first, and that his son succumbed shortly afterwards on that very day. Venkatraghvaraju left him surviving a widow Narasayya and a daughter Chandrayya by his pre-deceased wife Buchi Venkayya. After the deaths of Krishnamraju and his son, Akkiraju and Ramaraju continued to carry on the business, and while they do not recognize the right of Venkatraghvaraju's widow to inherit her husband's share in the estate belonging to the family, they provided ample maintenance, not only for her and her step-daughter, Chandrayya, but also for the widow and daughters of Krishnamraju.

(2.) In 1894 Akkiraju died, and was succeeded by Ramaraju as the manager of the family estate. After the death of Ramaraju, which took place in 1903, there were dissensions between the descendants of the two brothers, which culminated, in 1908, in a suit for a partition of the joint estate. To that suit, which was brought by Subbaraju, a grandson of Akkiraju, not only were the other male descendants of Akkiraju and Ramaraju impleaded as defendants, but also Venkatraghavaraju's daughter Chandrayya and her two minor sons, who are the plaintiffs in the present case. No written statement was filed on behalf of the minors by their mother, who was appointed their guardian ad litem; but in the pleas raised by her on her own behalf she claimed the estate on the ground of inheritance from her father who, she said, was separate from his collaterals. This plea gave rise to an issue about the jointness or otherwise of Venkatraghvaraju with Akkiraju and Ramaraju, but no evidence was adduced by the parties on that issue, and the judgment of the trial Court, which decreed partition of the estate, states that the issue "was given up by the parties." The decree for partition granted by the Court of first instance was affirmed on appeal by the High Court.

(3.) The joint property was duly partitioned in accordance with the decree, and it was not until 3 April 1918, that the suit, which has led to these appeals, was commenced by Chandrayya's sons against the members of the Alluri family, who were in possession of the estate. They alleged that in or about 1839 there was a separation among the four sons of Venkataraju, and that the property, which is the subject matter of the suit, was acquired by Krishnamaraju and his son Venkatraghavaraju, and devolved, at the death of the latter, upon his daughter as his heir under the Hindu law. They urged that the judgment pronounced in the suit of 1908 was not binding upon them, and asked for a declaration of their right to succeed, after the death of their mother, to the property specified in the schedules attached to the plaint, which, they said, had belonged to their maternal grandfather. Their claim was resisted by the descendants of Akkiraju and Ramaraju on various grounds, including the plea that Krishnamaraju with his son was joint with his brothers, and that on the deaths of the father and the son in 1882 the estate passed to Akkiraju and Ramaraju by survivorship. This plea was upheld by the trial Judge, but his judgment has been reversed by the High Court.