The main legal point established in the judgment is the necessity for courts to diligently apply and interpret the provisions of the Partition Act, particularly Sections 2, 3, 4, and 6, and to consider the distinctions between different types of properties involved in a dispute.

Venkatasubba Rao, J.

1. The Courts below have not paid the slightest attention to the sections of the Partition Act which they profess to apply. Section 3 of that Act has always been a source of trouble, but even that fact cannot excuse the total disregard by the Lower Courts of even the other provisions of the Act.

2. The facts may be briefly stated. The joint family to which these appeals relate consists of six members, the father, the 1st defendant and the sons, defendants 2 to 6. The 2nd defendant conveyed his sixth share in some items to the plaintiff in O.S. No. 267 of 1922 for Rs. 200. He similarly sold his interest in certain other items to the plaintiff in O.S. No. 268 of 1922 for Rs. 800. Each alienee has filed a suit claiming his share in the items alienated. In their written statement, the defendants offered to buy the plaintiffs share at a valuation. In each case, the Lower Courts, purporting to apply the Partition Act, have fixed the price of the plaintiffs interest and directed her to receive the amount in lieu of her share in the items conveyed. The plaintiffs question the correctness of this order.

3. I shall first consider the various sections of the Act before examining whether the orders can be sustained. In the first place, there is a broad distinction between Sections 2, 3 and 6, forming a group, on the one hand, and Section 4 on the other. Clause (1) of the last mentioned section runs thus:

Where a share of a dwelling-house belonging to an undivided family has been transferred to a person who is: not a member of such family and such transferee sues for partition, the Court shall, if any member of the family being a shareholder shall undertake to buy the share of such transferee, make a valuation of such share in such manner as it thinks fit and direct the sale of such share to such shareholder, and may give all necessary and proper directions in that behalf.

4. It applies to the case of a dwelling-house, a share of which has been transferred to a stranger. Three conditions must be fulfilled before Section 4 comes into operation:

(1) the suit must relate to a dwelling-house of an undivided family,

(2) some share in it must have been transferred to a stranger, and

(3) the stranger transferee must have sued for partition.

5. In the case of the other sections, one of the parties to the dispute may or may not be a stranger. Even if the subject of dispute is a dwelling-house, unless there be a stranger transferee, Section 4 does not apply.

6. Having adverted to this important distinction, I shall now refer to the group consisting of Sections 2, 3 and 6. Section 2 says that if it appears to the Court that for certain reasons, selling the property is more beneficial than dividing it by metes and bounds, the Court, on the request of the shareholders, interested individually or collectively to the extent of one moiety or upwards, direct a sale of the property and a distribution of the proceeds. Then comes the question, who can claim the benefit of Section 3 ? It expressly enacts that when the request mentioned in Section 2 proceeds from a certain party, some shareholder other than that party may apply under Section 3. It is difficult to understand why the rule has been so enacted. Mr. Justice Coutts Trotter refers to "the practical inconvenience, almost the absurdity, of the results" following from such a rule. (See Original Suit No. 750 of 1919 on the file of the High Court.) In Ramprasad v. Mukandi (1929) 116 I.C. 851 (A.) the learned Judges rightly point out that the effect of this section is to favour the smaller shareholder at the expense of the larger. The fact of a person owning a large share is by this section made a disability and he is precluded from offering to buy the interest of the party owning the smaller share. For instance, if A owns nine-tenths and B one-tenth of an item, the section regards A as being a person under disability although if, of the two persons, one should be favoured, A would appear to