IMPORTANT POINT
In absence of absolute right no one can bequeath any property.

Anand Byrareddy, J.— Heard the learned Counsel for the parties.

2. The parties are referred to by their rank before the Trial Court for the sake of convenience.

3. The first respondent was the plaintiff. The suit was for partition and separate possession of the suit property. It was the case of the plaintiff that he and the defendants constituted a Joint Hindu Family. It was asserted that Appaji, the father of the plaintiff, had purchased the suit property as a house site, as on 27.10.1958. Appaji is .said to have died in the year 1959.

Defendant 1 Lakkamma alias Lakshmamma, was the mother of the plaintiff. Defendant 2 Gowramma and defendant 8 Lakshmamma, were the sisters of the plaintiff. Defendant 3, Kenchamma was the widowed sister-in-law (wife of late Krishnappa who died in the year 1988). Defendants 4 and 5 were the son and daughter, respectively, of Kenchamma. Defendant 6-Sudhakara was the brother of the plaintiff. Defendants 7(a) and 7(b) were the widow and son of Ramu, a deceased brother of the plaintiff, who died during the pendency of the suit.

It was claimed that after the death of Appaji, the mother of the plaintiff and his brother Krishnappa were managing the family. Kenchamma, was unable to get alongwith the mother of the plaintiff. Krishnappa and Kenchamma therefore left the joint family and lived• separately from the year 1966.

The plaintiff claimed that the burden of maintaining the family fell on him and the plaintiff, out of his earnings as a mason and from vending milk was able to take care of the family and also managed to construct seven small tenements on the site acquired by his father, which is defined as the suit schedule property. The tenements were let out and the mother of the plaintiff was collecting the rents and utilising the same for maintenance of the family.

Though the plaintiff had married in the year 1970 and also had to set up a separate house on account of the mother of the plaintiff not being able to tolerate the presence of the wife of the plaintiff, he claimed that he continued to provide for the family and maintained it.

It was claimed that till the year 1994, this state of affairs continued. The plaintiff performed the marriage of his daughter in that year. The plaintiff had sought financial support from his mother to perform the marriage, from out of savings and the rental income. Though she had assured him of such aid, she is said to have resiled later, allegedly at the instance of Ramu, the brother of the plaintiff, who was alive at that point of time. This led to a rift between the plaintiff and his family. The plaintiff realising that he would certainly be denied of a share in the family property was constrained to file the suit.

The suit was initially decreed without contest, as on 28.6.2003. It was subsequently restored to file at the instance of defendant 8 and others and was contested by defendant 1, the mother of the plaintiff and defendant 8 a sister of the plaintiff. There was dispute about the claim of defendants 7(a) and 7(b) as the legal representatives of Ramu, the deceased brother of the plaintiff.

Defendant 1 died during the pendency of the suit. However, her stand was that the suit property though purchased as a vacant site, in the name of her husband, it was actually funded by her, by selling her jewellery and the savings from the milk vending business that she was carrying on. It was hence claimed as her self-acquired property. It was also asserted that it was out of her earnings that construction was put up over the property. She also claimed that she had generously contributed substantial sums of money to the plaintiff, when he secured a job in BEML, for his son’s medical expenses, when the plaintiff purchased a site and constructed a house at No. 1363, Indiranagar, Bangalore. Defendant 1 hence claimed that if the plaintiff seeks to claim the suit property as joint family property, the house aforesaid should also be included as joint family property.

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