Admissions are valuable evidence, but they are not conclusive and can be rebutted by other evidence. Mere exclusive possession by one co-owner does not amount to adverse possession in the absence of ouster or denial of the title of the other co-owners. Unchastity is a condition precedent only for qualifying a widow to succeed to her husband's estate. Once the property is vested in her by succession, it is not divested by her subsequent unchastity.

KRISHNA RAO, J. : -

This is an appeal by the defendants from the preliminary decree made by the Court of the Subordinate Judge, of Kurnool in O. S. No. 25 of 1951, for partition and delivery of possession of the plaintiffs half share in the suit properties. The plaintiffs claim was based on her being the 1st defendants co-widow, their husband Kedari Rao having died without leaving any male issue about the beginning of 1915.

The 2nd defendant was the purchaser of the plaint A schedule property, consisting of a house at Kurnool under the sale deed Ex. B-3 executed on 30-10-1944 by the 1st defendant and her daughter Seetha Bai. Various defences were set up but the most important controversy related to the plaint B schedule properties. Items 1 to 18 of these properties consisted of Cinema machinery and equipment of the aggregate value of Rs. 26,200/-.

The remaining item 19 was a lump sum oS Rs. 3,000/. stated to be outstandings and cash in the possession of the 1st defendant. This item need not detain us because Sri A. Bhujanga Rao the learned counsel for the plaintiff-respondent concedes that there is no proof whatever for its existence. The lower courts decree cannot obviously be supported so far as item 19 of the plaint B schedule properties is concerned.

2. With regard to items 1 to 18 of the plaint B schedule, the plaintiffs case is that the 1st defendant purchased them with the assets left by Kedari Rao, which comprised outstandings to the tune of Rs. 25,000/- and gold and silver articles and other moveables worth Rs. 5,000/- or Rs. 6,000/-. In the witness box, she and her witness P. W. 2 who spoke from hearsay knowledge swelled up the value of the property left by Kedari Rao to Rs. 40,000/-.

The 1st defendants case was that Kedari Rao, who had been merely eking, out his livelihood as a pleaders clerk, left a number of debts which had to be discharged by selling her jewels and no assets worth mentioning besides the plaint A schedule house and an Insurance policy for Rs. 1,000/-. The cinema was purchased by and belonged to the 1st defendants brother Vittal Rao, who was a cinema technician himself.

Owing to partition disputes between her three brothers, the licence was nominally taken in her name soon after the cinema was purchased. But she was merely a name lender and after the disputes between the brothers were settled, the licence was transferred to Vittal Rao in about August, 1950.

3. The only evidence in support of the plaintiffs case consists of Exts. A-2 to A-4, containing certain admissions made by the 1st defendant in prior litigation. Ex. A-2 is the written statement made by her on 18-3-1948, in O. S. No. 7 of 1948 filed by her elder brother Subba Rao against her other brothers for partition of their family properties, impleading her as the 4th defendant.

She alleged in paragraphs 4 to 6 of Ex. A-2 that she had purchased the cinema machinery and equipment with her own monies on 26-11-1947 for about Rs. 20,000/-, that she had been married into a rich family at Kurnool and became the heiress to the estate of her husband, that she had been lending large sums of money to other persons and that when she migrated to Proddatur in 1945 she had cash and jewels worth Rs 20,000/-. Ex. A-3 is the counter filed by her on 2-7-1948 in I. A. No. 93 of 1948 in the same suit and the allegations therein are to the same effect.

Ex. A-4 is her deposition as P. W. 1 in O. S. No. 185 of 1947. a suit filed by her to establish her title to a site at Proddatur which has been purchased for Rs. 340/- on 20-3-1929 in the name of one of her brothers Satwaji Rao. She said in the course of her evidence that her husband had left properties worth about Rs. 20.000/- apart from her own Stridhanam properties and that she had purchased the Cinema from her own funds and was running the cinema business.

It was elicited from her that she had pledged her jewels for raising Rs. 100/- paid as advance for the purchase of the site, a fact which casts some doubt