PEDDI REDDI JOGI REDDI Vs. PANEM CHINNABBI REDDI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a judgment of the High Court of Madras affirming a judgment of the temporary Subordinate Judge of Cuddapah who affirmed a judgment of the District Munaif of Proddatur, The suit is brought by the plaintiff, a member of a joint undivided Hindu family, for partition. The defendants, so far as is relevant to the present issues, are his two brothers and the appellant Jogi Reddi. The question at issue is whether certain properties are, as the plaintiff affirms, joint family properties, or, as the appellant affirms, the separate property of the appellant.

(2.) Chinnabbi Reddi the plaintiff, Munir Roddi, and Chinnabali Reddi were brothers forming a joint Hindu family. They owned some seventeen acres of land of poor quality and were poor folk. They had a sister, Sanjamma, who married Chinnaya, a Christian. The appellant, Jogi Reddi, is the only son of the marriage. Chinnaya was in better circumstances than his wife's family. He owned twenty-four acres of land apparently of good quality: part of it being represented by an undivided half interest in land of which the other half interest was owned by his brother. After his marriage, Chinnaya came to live in his wife's village. He died in 1887, when Jogi Reddi the appellant was about four years old, leaving the appellant the heir to his Lord Atkin property. After his death, the mother and child went to live with the child's uncles. From that time onwards the uncles treated the minor's property in the same way as their own family property; they cultivated it and treated the produce as joint property. With their resources as reinforced they rose to comparative affluence, In 1901, Jogi Reddi attained his majority. The position remained unchanged; the family fortunes increased: individual members adventured in road repairs, indigo, nut crushing, the proceeds going to a common fund. In 1906 the outstanding half interest in Chinnaya's ancestral property was bought for Rs. 760 from his brother's son. It was, as the appellant affirms, bought for him out of his share of the proceeds of his land. It was certainly taken in his name. The purchase price was paid for out of the common fund: there appears to have been no other fund out of which it could be paid, In 1916, Chinnabbi Reddi became dissatisfied with the administration of the family affairs and claimed partition. In July, 1916, an agreement was come to between the parties and reduced into writing, whereby a partition was arranged. In that division, the lands claimed by Jogi Reddi as his own were excluded from division, and a grant of further land was also, made to him exclusively, The agreement was, unfortunately, not registered, and is, therefore, under the terms of the Indian Registration Act, not available as evidence of the transaction. It has properly been rejected by all the Courts. The argument has been addressed to the Board that it is admissible as collateral evidence of the conduct of the parties. In the view their Lordships take of the case, they have found it unnecessary to express an opinion upon this point, and for the purposes of their decision have ignored the document.

(3.) What then are the rights of the plaintiff in respect of the property which Jogi Reddi as a minor inherited from his father? The subsequent acquisition of the undivided half can be dealt with separately.