Research › Browse › Judgment

Madhya Pradesh High Court · body

1998 DIGILAW 393 (MP)

Mangilal v. Hemraj

1998-05-05

S.C.PANDEY

body1998
JUDGMENT This appeal is directed against the judgment and decree of the lower appellate Court, dated 8.9.1997, passed in Civil Appeal No. 58 - A/95, whereby appeal of respondent No. 1, Hemraj, against the judgment and decree of the trial Court dated 9.10.1995, passed in Civil Suit No. 114 - A/95, was partially allowed and it was declared that the respondent No. 1, Hemraj had one-fourth share in the half of the suit property, mentioned in paragraph 2 of the plaint and the other half belonged to the respondent No. 2, Patiram. It was further held that so far as the property mentioned in paragraph 2-B of the plaint was concerned, the respondent No. 1, Hemraj had one-fourth share and the appellant Nos. 1, 2 and 3 had one-fourth share each. In this appeal, the only question that was raised by the learned counsel for the appellants was to the effect that the property mentioned in sale-deed dated 18.12.1973 and 16.3.1962 was self acquired property of Mangilal, the appellant No. 1 and Narayan, the appellant No. 2 and were not out of the earnings of the Joint Hindu Family property of the parties. The lower appellate Court has relied on a decision in the case of Ramkrishna and others v. Vithal Rao and others, reported in 1978 JLJ 450 , for the proposition that normally a Hindu family is presumed to be joint and the property which is earned by the members of the Joint Hindu Family belonged to it. If any member of Joint Hindu Family claims that a particular property is self-acquired property, then the burden of proof is on him for establishing that fact. In the light of above proposition, the lower appellate Court found that the appellant No. 1, Mangilal admitted in his evidence that there was ancestral property of the Joint Hindu Family of which his father was manager. Therefore, there was a presumption that the purchases made by the aforesaid sale deeds could be made out of the income of the Joint Hindu Family property. The lower appellate Court has turned down the contention of the appellants that the suit property were purchased after partition. This finding of fact is based on appreciation of evidence on record and it cannot be said to be perverse. The lower appellate Court has turned down the contention of the appellants that the suit property were purchased after partition. This finding of fact is based on appreciation of evidence on record and it cannot be said to be perverse. The lower appellate Court found that there was a nucleus for acquiring the property in question from the income of the Joint Hindu Family and the appellants had failed to prove that it was self-acquired property. There is no merit in the contention of learned counsel for the appellants that this finding is liable to be disturbed in second appeal. For all the reasons aforesaid, this appeal fails and is hereby dismissed.