Attestators are not bound for the contents of the document because of the fact that they have attested it.

R.JAYASIMHA BABU, J.)

This appeal arises from a suit brought by the first respondent for declaration of his title to a house, more fully described in the plaint schedule. The Trial Court decreed the suit and that decree was affirmed in appeal. The present appeal is by defendants 2 and 3, who have purchased the property from defendant No.1.

2. There is no dispute about the fact that the suit schedule property all along stood in the name of the mother of the plaintiff, who is defendant No.1. The site had been purchased in her name, the building plan had been sanctioned in her name and all taxes were shown in the records as having been paid by her. Her husband, the father of the plaintiff, was an employee of the Government. He also had ancestral properties.

3. The plaintiff, his two brothers and their father entered into a partition under a registered deed dated 19.2.1969, in which it was stated that though the house stood in the name of the mother, it in fact belonged to the father and that that property was being allotted to the share of the father. The mother had attested the document, but was not a party to the same. There is nothing in the document to show that she had knowledge of its contents. Almost twelve years later, in the year 1981, an unregistered document was drawn up, described as a family arrangement, to which the plaintiff, his two brothers and their father were parties, wherein it was stated that the plaintiff had sent a notice making certain claims and in order to resolve the dispute raised by him the family arrangement was being entered into under which the plaint schedule property was being allotted to the share of the plaintiff. That document was not registered. After that document was drawn up, the plaintiff attempted to have the title of the property transferred to his name. But that request was rejected by the letter dated 8.8.1981, marked as Ex.B-11. Thereafter, the plaintiff does not appear to have made any effort to assert title to the property. Though the plaintiff, in the course of his deposition, claimed that the tenant had been paying rents to him, no documents were produced to substantiate that assertion.

4. The property, even after the partition in which it was recorded that the property belonged to the father and had been allotted to his share, continued to remain in the name of the mother who, when she was examined in this suit as D.W.1, has stated that she had no knowledge of the contents of the partition deed; that the property continued to belong to her and that she came to know about the purported allotment of that property to her husband's share only after the present suit was instituted by the plaintiff. The plaintiff did not place any material before the Court to show that his mother had knowledge of the contents of the partition deed and had accepted the same at any point of time prior to the institution of the suit. There is no material on record to show that the mother had at any time accepted the property as belonging to her husband. On the other hand, the records produced in the trial Court showed that she had filed a petition against the tenant of the property in the year 1982, two years prior to the institution of the present suit, which would clearly indicate that she was asserting her title to the property and had not recognised either her husband or her son as the owner of the same.

5. On 22.12.1982, the first defendant/mother executed a sale deed in favour of the present appellants, who were defendants 2 and 3. Those defendants subsequently obtained possession of the property also and were in possession on the date of the suit and thereafter as well.

6. The trial Court as also the learned single Judge proceeded on the footing that the attestation of the partition deed by the mother resulted in an estoppel, operating against her from denying the title of her husband and, therefore, the father to whom that property was allotted at the partition had acquired valid title to