The court held that property disposition under S.27 requires joint ownership proof and appropriate inquiry, and separate orders violate procedural norms.

1. Two cross petitions i. e. one filed by Surrinder Singh, the appellant herein, under S.9 of the Hindu Marriages Act, 1955 , and the other by Manjeet Kaur, the respondent herein, were disposed of by District Judge, Jammu, by the consent of the parties, and a decree for judicial separation passed in favour of the respondent against the appellant. During the pendency of these proceedings, the respondent had also moved an application under S.27 of the Act, seeking disposal of certain articles of moveable property, some of which, according to her, were her exclusive property whereas the others were the joint property of the parties. She had annexed two lists to her application, out of which List A, which inter alia included gold ornaments, represented her exclusive property. The appellant in his objections had, however, contended that the entire property was the joint property of the parties, as it had been gifted away to both the spouses at or about the time of their marriage.

2. The learned District Judge, on agreement of the parties, had initially appointed one S. Avtar Singh Advocate as the Superdar of the said property, and the appellant had willingly undertaken to hand over to him the aforesaid property, which was admitted by him to be in his possession. Later on, he has fallen back upon his word and had challenged the aforesaid order in appeal before this Court. That appeal was heard and disposed of by me by my order dated 7-5-1979, the operative part whereof reads as under : -
"This appeal is totally misconceived. Apart from the fact that the appeal has been preferred against an agreed order, the order itself is totally innocuous as what the trial Court has actually done is that it has kept the articles on the superdnama of a counsel for one of the parties without deciding any right to their ownership. I find no force in this appeal which is dismissed with costs."
After this appeal came to be dismissed. a new Superdar, namely, Mr. S.L. Kotwal Advocate was appointed by the Court, again with the consent of the parties, to whom some articles of the property were also handed over by the appellant, which of course did not include ornaments weighing six tolas of gold, which the respondent claimed to be heir exclusive property, and which the appellant said were jointly owned by the parties. The learned District Judge by a separate order passed on her application under S.27, which too came to be passed on the same date on which the main petitions were disposed of by him, directed the Superdar to hand over the property entrusted him to the respondent, besides directing the appellant to hand over to her the ornaments weighing six tolas of gold. The appellant has challenged the aforesaid order in this appeal an two grounds : firstly, that he could not have passed such an order on a separate application, but could have given such a direction in the decree in the main petition in itself; and secondly, that he has erred in law, in that, he without making any enquiry and recording any finding to that effect has treated the ornaments to be the exclusive property of the respondent and issued the impugned direction accordingly, even though he otherwise too has no jurisdiction under S.27 to make such a direction in respect of the separate property of any party to the litigation. At this stage it becomes necessary to take notice of S.27 which reads as under :
"In any proceeding under this Act, the Court may make such provisions in the decree as it deems just and proper with respect to any property presented, at or about the time of marriage, which may belong jointly to both the husband and the wife."

3. Whereas S.27 deals with the property belonging to the spouses, S.2