An unregistered partition deed cannot be used to establish the creation, declaration, assignment, limitation, or extinguishment of a right to immovable property, even for collateral purposes.

( 1 ) THIS is a second appeal by the plaintiffs. Plaintiffs suit for permanent injunction and in the alternative for partition of a house and mesne profit has been dismissed by both the courts below. The suit property is a Chabutra. The trial court after considering the evidence on record held that the plaintiffs could not prove the alleged ancestral nature of the property or even its partition and the disputed Chabutra being allotted to their share. He also held that the plaintiffs were never in possession thereof and the defendants had been in exclusive and adverse possession of the suit property. The trial court dismissed the suit, for the plaintiffs failed to prove their title and possession over the property in suit.

( 2 ) THE lower appellate court on an appraisal of the evidence on record and after considering the contentions raised by the learned counsel for the plaintiffs held that the plaintiffs could not prove that the suit property ever pertained to any joint ancestral house of the parties or that on a partition it was allotted to their exclusive share. They also failed to prove that they were in possession of the suit property. The court further found that the defendants evidence proved that their ancestors had been in exclusive and adverse possession over the suit property for a period more than 12 years preceding the suit and had thus prescribed an absolute proprietary title. Consequently, the appeal was dismissed, and the judgment and decree of the trial court was affirmed.

( 3 ) LEARNED counsel for the appellants raised three contentions: Firstly; that the document of partition Ex. 1 was not compulsorily registerable. He urged that this was a document executed in 1897, and provisions of the Registration Act, 1908 had no application to it. The Registration Act, 1908 did not come into play, but there were earlier Registration Acts of the year 1871 and 1877. It could not be shown that the provisions analogous to Section 49 of the Registration Act, 1908 were not there in the previous Registration Acts. This contention was never raised in the court below, and I find no merits in this contention.

( 4 ) THE second contention was that the partition deed, even if it was not registered, could certainly be looked into for a collateral purpose. This proposition is correct that if a document is compulsorily registerable and has not been registered, it will be admissible in evidence only for a collateral purpose, but the collateral purpose has a limited scope and meaning. It cannot be used for the purpose of saying that the deed created or declared or assigned or limited or extinguished a right to immovable property. If these could not be established by the collateral purpose, then in that event how could the document be used for showing that the property was partitioned or that particular properties were given to the various parties in the partition. If the document was unregistered, then it could not be used for showing that is created, declared, assigned, limited or extinguished a right to immovable property. The term collateral purpose would not permit the party to establish any of these acts from the deed. In my opinion, the contention that it would be used for collateral purpose does not advance the case of the plaintiffs at all. It still falls short in proving that there was a partition between the parties.

( 5 ) LEARNED counsel then contended that the deed could be treated to be a" family arrangement and a family arrangement was not compulsorily registerable. This contention, in my opinion, is not correct. The Supreme Court in the case of Kale v. Dy. Director of Consolidation, (AIR 1976 sc 807), held that a family arrangement in case it is oral needs no registration, but if the terms thereof were reduced into writing, it became imperative to have the document registered and unless it was registered, it could not be looked into. The plea of family arrangement is sought to be derived from Exhibit-1.