Property ownership clarifications between ancestral and self-acquired rights, with implications for family settlements and the necessity of registration.

1. The present appeal has been filed by the appellants / defendants against the judgment and decree dated 10.05.2017 passed by the learned 1st Additional District Judge, Bilaspur, District Bilaspur (C.G.) in Civil Suit No.247 - A / 2014, whereby the suit of the plaintiffs has been allowed. (The parties herein shall be referred as per their status before the Trial Court.)

2. Brief facts of the case are that the plaintiffs / respondent Nos.1 to 5 filed suit for declaration of title claiming that the mutation order passed in favor of defendant Nos.1 to 3 is illegal and void and the suit property be declared a joint family property and the sale deed executed by defendant No.1 in favor of defendant No.4 be cancelled and the defendants be restrained from selling any portion of the suit property. The plaintiffs further pleaded in the suit that the father of the plaintiffs and defendants namely Late Shri Shivrati Shriwas was having 0.06 acre land in his name and Smt. Pyari Bai, the mother of the plaintiffs and defendants was having 0.04 acre land in her name. After the death of Shivrati, all the parties consented that the property should be mutated in the name of mother Smt. Pyari Bai. Accordingly the suit property was mutated in the name of Smt. Pyari Bai and after the death of Pyari Bai, the defendants No.1 to 3 divided the suit property among them without informing the plaintiffs and got the mutation in their name and even the defendant No.1 sold his share of the suit property to the defendant No.4. The plaintiffs further pleaded that all the brothers and sisters are having equal share in the suit and prayed that mutation order passed in favor of defendant Nos.1 to 3 be declared as illegal and void and the suit property be declared a joint family property and the sale deed executed by defendant No.1 in favor of defendant No.4 be cancelled and the defendants be restrained from selling any portion of the suit property.
The defendant No.1 and 4 and defendant Nos.2 and 3 filed separate written statement submitting that the suit property was not an ancestral property but was a self acquired property of their mother and father. All the sisters gave consent that the land recorded in the name of father be recorded in the name of mother and the mother on the basis of her Will filed an application for partition of the suit property between the three brothers and accordingly the suit property was partitioned and recorded in the name of defendants 1 to 3 and they are in physical possession of the suit land. The further submission of the defendants was that all the sisters gave their written consent to the above partition, hence they have no right or title over the suit property and the sale deed executed in favor of the Respondent No.4 is just and proper and after getting the full consideration, no proper Court fees has been paid and the suit is time barred. The defendants No.5 and 6 and defendants No.7 to 11, who are the legal representative of deceased sister Pushpa Bai, remained Ex - party. The learned Trial Court after appreciating the oral and documentary evidence available on record allowed the suit of the plaintiffs, against which the present appeal has been filed by the appellants / defendants.

3. Learned counsel for the appellants submits that the impugned judgment and decree is bad in law and facts. The Trial Court wrongly held that the suit property is ancestral property, in which all the brothers and sisters are successor. The Trial Court should have held that the suit property reco