CHIMALAKONDA RAMASUBBARAYA SASTRI Vs. GANAPATHIRAJU VENKATA APPALANARASIMHARAJU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the judgment and decree of the learned Subordinate Judge of Rajahmundry dismissing the plaintiffs suit for possession of a half share in certain immovable properties described in Schedule B to the plaint. The said property admittedly belonged to one Suryanarayanaraju and his son Venkatapatiraju. It is the plaintiffs case that the said property was leased in 1868 by Suryanarayanaraju as the father and head of the joint, family consisting of himself and his son Venkatapatiraju for a period of fifty years, that subsequent to the said lease the said Suryanarayanaraju and Venkatapatiraju became divided in status, that Venkatapatiraju was entitled in severalty to a half share in the said property, and that on the death of his widow Butchi Bangarayya on 21 January, 1927, the first plaintiff became entitled to the said property as the next reversioner. The defendants trace their title to the entirety of the said property to the father Suryanarayanaraju who alienated the reversion in the said lands. Their case is that there was no division in status between the father and the son and on the death of the son the whole property survived to the father by survivorship and he was competent to alienate the same and confer a good title upon them. They also deny the relationship of the first plaintiff to Venkatapatiraju. Two questions fell to "be decided by the lower Court (1) whether the first plaintiff was the next reversioner to Venkatapatiraju and (2) whether there was a division in status between Venkatapatiraju and his father Suryanarayanaraju. On the first question the learned Subordinate Judge held that the first plaintiff had not made out his title as the next reversioner; but on the second question the learned Subordinate Judge held that there was a division in status between Venkatapatiraju and his father Suryanarayanaraju by reason of the judgment and decree in O.S. No. 8 of 1?78 on the file of the District Court, Godavari. As an adverse finding on either of the issues entailed a dismissal of the plaintiff's suit, the learned Subordinate Judge dismissed the suit.

(2.) The first plaintiff died during the pendency of the suit. Plaintiffs 2 and 3 are alienees of a portion of the suit property from the first plaintiff subsequent to the death of Butchi Bangarayya. Plaintiffs 4 and 5 were brought on record as, the legal representatives of the first plaintiff. This appeal is by plaintiffs 3, 4 and 5. There is also a memorandum of objections by the alienee defendants objecting to the finding as to division in status.

(3.) The main point urged by Mr Vallabhacharyulu on behalf of the appellants is that the learned Judge in the Court below in arriving at the finding regarding relationship has not given due effect to two important documents in the case, namely, Exs. AA and Z-11. He contends that the oral and documentary evidence were not properly appreciated by the learned Judge. The plain, tiffs have filed a pedigree which we give herein: