MINOR C R RAMASWAMI AIYANGAR, REPRESENTED BY HIS MOTHER AND NEXT FRIEND LAKSHMI AMMAL Vs. CSRANGACHARIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition raises important questions with regard to the stamping of plaints in suits for the partition of estates of joint Hindu families. The petitioner is the minor son of a Hindu father. Through his mother as next friend he has filed a suit in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Kumbakonam for partition of the family properties and for possession of his one-fifth share therein. He has joined as defendants his father, his three brothers, and twenty-two other persons. The stranger defendants are made parties either as alienees of family properties or as creditors of the family. In his plaint the plaintiff avers that the family is one engaged merely in agriculture and that before the matters complained of, it had large cash resources. He alleges that his father has engaged in reckless speculation in land, in trade, and in litigation with the result that the cash resources have disappeared, the family properties have been sold or mortgaged and numerous debts contracted. The plaintiff says that his father's transactions are not binding on the family, but he has not in terms asked for the setting aside of the alienations of family properties or for declarations that his father's other transactions are unenforceable against the estate. His prayers are for (i) an account of the movable and immovable joint family properties, (ii) the partition by metes and bounds of his. one-fifth share, (iii) the appointment of a receiver to manage the properties and collect the rents and income till the disposal of the suit, (iv) the costs of the suit, and (v) such further and necessary reliefs as in the circumstances may be considered necessary and proper. He values his share of the family properties at Rs. 40,000 but has merely stamped his plaint with a court-fee of Rs. 100 under Art. 17B of Schedule II of the Court-Fees Act as amended in Madras.

(2.) On the filing of the plaint the Subordinate Judge called for a statement of the transactions which the plaintiff says are invalid as against the family and a statement was submitted. From this statement and the order of the Subordinate Judge with which this petition is concerned the following particulars have been extracted:

(3.) It does not appear from the statement nor from the order of the Subordinate Judge why the 16 and the 17 defendants are made parties, though in the plaint it has been alleged that they are among the persons from whom the first defendant has borrowed.