ORDER : BY THE COURT: REPORTABLE This miscellaneous appeal under Order 43 Rule 1 (r) CPC has been filed by the appellant-plaintiff (hereinafter `the plaintiff') against the order dated 29-5-2014 passed by the Additional District Judge No.4, Jaipur Metropolitan City Jaipur (hereinafter `the trial court') by which the application under Order 39 Rules 1&2 CPC filed by the plaintiff in his suit for declaration and permanent injunction has been dismissed. Heard learned counsel for the plaintiff and perused the impugned order dated 29-5-2014 passed by the trial court. By a detailed order, the trial court has noted that the suit property, being agricultural land, was gifted to the respondents-defendants (hereinafter `the defendants') by way of a registered gift-deed dated 7-11-2007 by their father Krishna Gopal who had earlier acquired it from his own income in his individual name under a registered sale-deed dated 29-11-1967. The donor was thus empowered in law to convey his property by way of a gift deed which indeed was executed by him and got registered in favour of defendants No.1to5, all his sons. The learned trial court did not find any substance in the bald assertions of the plaintiff that the suit property had been acquired by his father Krishna Gopal partially from the funds supplied by the plaintiff. The prima facie view rested on the fact on record that during 1965-66 the plaintiff himself had been financed for a M.Sc. Degree by his father Krishna Gopal and in the circumstances, it was inconceivable that the plaintiff would have been in a position to contribute any amount at all for the purchase of suit land by his father in 1967. It was also noted by the trial court that Krishna Gopal was apparently monied as he had earlier acquired a house in 1957 in his own name, when the plaintiff was only 14 years of age. There was similarly no material produced by the plaintiff in support of his application under Order 39 Rules 1&2 CPC to prima facie establish that either the house earlier purchased or the agricultural land later purchased by his father was from the sale of ornaments belonging to the joint family, consequent to which the suit property partook the character of joint family property.
The trial court also noted the fact that prior to the gift deed dated 7-11-2007 executed in favour of the defendants qua the agricultural land, the land had stood in the name of Shri Krishna Gopal for more than forty years without demur. And that if at all the plaintiff had any interest in the said property he would not have filed the suit belatedly after 7 years in the year 2014, but would have been quicker of his feet to challenge the gift deed dated 7-11-2007. Learned counsel for the plaintiff has reiterated the same facts, as before the trial court, in this miscellaneous appeal. His main contention is that a suit qua immovable property having been filed the disputed property should inevitably have been preserved during the pendency of the suit by grant of ad interim injunction restraining the respondents-defendants from alienating, transferring or creating third party rights therein. Heard. Considered. The impugned interlocutory order passed by the trial court under Order 39 Rules 1&2 CPC is a matter of the trial court's discretion judicially exercised in the facts of the case. Unless discretion is exercised arbitrarily or whimsically, there is no occasion for the appellate court to interfere therewith. I am of the considered opinion that the mere filing of a suit in respect of immovable property does automatically entailed passing an interim order in favour of the plaintiff. The plaintiff has to make out a plausible prima facie case based on material of probative worth from documents on record and/ or probabilities of the case deduced from surrounding circumstances. This the plaintiff had failed to do. In the instant case the gift deed dated 7-11-2007 by Krishna Gopal was with regard to his own individual property, standing unchallenged in his own name for the last forty years prior thereto. The gift deed was duly registered and the donees were none other than the five sons of the donor. No dispute as to the right to execute the gift deed duly registered by the donor as owner of the property conveyed thereunder was raised by the plaintiff for about 7 years and till after the death of the donor. The plaintiff's claim to joint ownership of the gifted property was even otherwise specious based as it was on bald assertions without an iota of supporting material.
The plaintiff's claim to joint ownership of the gifted property was even otherwise specious based as it was on bald assertions without an iota of supporting material. There is no presumption of jointness of property even where it has been established that there was a joint family. And one who asserts that property is joint must discharge the burden proving sufficient nucleus out of which the alleged joint property could have been purchased. The plaintiff did nothing of this, even prima facie, before the trial court. In the circumstances, the plaintiff's application under Order 39 Rules 1&2 CPC was rightly dismissed by the trial court. No prima facie case was even remotely made out before the trial court, what of balance of convenience and irreparable loss being found for the plaintiff. The Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of Skyline Education Institute (India) Pvt. Ltd. Vs. S.L. Vaswani [ (2010)2 SCC 142 ] has held that where the court passes an order on an application under Order 39 Rules 1&2 CPC on objective consideration of material placed before it and the order is based on cogent reasons, is without palpable error no manifest injustice is occasioned, there should be no interference on appeal. Such a situation obtains in the present case. I find no force in the miscellaneous appeal. Dismissed.