CHIKKAM AMMIRAJU Vs. CHIKKAM SESHAMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The defendants are the appellants. The only question in this case is whether the release- dead Ex. A. was executed by the plaintiffs with their free consent or whether it was obtained from the two plaintiffs (mother and son) through the exercise of coercion or undue influence or both, brought to bear upon them by the defendants (the younger brothers of the 1st plaintiff s husband) and their father Doraiyya through the 1st plaintiff s husband Swami who threatened to commit suicide unless the plaintiffs executed the release deed (Ex-A) in respect of their reversionary rights in certain lands which the 1st plaintiff s mother had sold without necessity to the defendant s father s vendor.

(2.) The lower Courts found (a) that the 1st plaintiff s husband (the 2nd plaintiff s, father) did threaten to commit suicide if the plaintiffs would not execute the release deed and that it was on account of that threat working on their minds that the plaintiffs executed the deed; (b) that such a threat was "coercion" and a deed brought about by such a threat is not a deed executed with free consent and (c) that though the threat was not made by the defendants (the parties to the deed) but by their brother, the document was voidable as "coercion" Used by a person who is not a party to the deed also negatived free consent. On these findings the plaintiffs suit for cancellation of the deed was decreed.

(3.) The material contentions in second appeal are found in the grounds 3 and 4 of the memorandum as follows: 3. The facts relied upon by the Courts below do not in law constitute coercion or undue influence.