A co-owner cannot seek an injunction against another co-owner over shared property; such actions must recognize the rights of all parties with interest.

JUDGMENT

The plaintiffs in a suit for injunction concurrently non-suited by the courts below have come up in the present appeal.

2. The brief facts necessary for the disposal of the appeal are as follows:

An extent of 25 cents of land originally belonged to one Madhavi Amma, the grant mother of the plaintiffs and defendants 1 and 2 and late Krishna Menon, obtained under a partition deed in the year 1962. The mother of the plaintiffs was also allotted the larger extent of property under B schedule to the said partition deed. It is contended that the defendants 1 and 2 and late Krishna Menon were never interested in the property after the partition, and Madhavi Amma and Bhanumathy Amma continued to be in possession of the property, and later, on the death of Madhavi Amma, Bhanumathy Amma came into absolute possession of the property based on which, she had mutated the property and had remitted the tax. Later, according to the plaintiffs, defendants 1 and 2, along with some of the legal heirs of Krishna Menon, had sold the undivided rights over the plaint schedule property to the 3^rd defendant, and the 3^rd defendant attempted to trespass into the property and collect the usufructs. The 3^rd defendant requested the plaintiffs to help him to demarcate his property from the rest of the land of late Bhanumathy Amma. The 1^st plaintiff requested him not to interfere with the peaceful possession, and the properties were in the exclusive possession of late Bhanumathy Amma until her death. Since the defendants were not amenable to the request of the 1st plaintiff, they apprehended that their possession over the plaint schedule property would be disturbed. The 3^rd defendant resisted the suit by contending that he had purchased the property from the legal heirs of late Krishna Menon and defendants 1 and 2 on 20.11.2007 by sale deed No.360 of 2008 and had mutated the property in his name. A possession certificate was also issued by the Village Officer in his name. It is also contended that the plaintiffs had no exclusive right over the property and that the suit against the co-owner is not maintainable. On behalf of the plaintiffs, Exts.A1 to A7 documents were produced, and PW1 and PW2 were examined and on behalf of the defendants, Exts.B1 to B9 series documents were produced, and DW1 to DW4 were examined. The trial court, on appreciation of the oral and documentary evidence, came to the conclusion that the plaintiffs are claiming an injunction against the true owner who had purchased the property from defendants 1 and 2 and the legal heirs of Krishna Menon and therefore declined to grant an injunction. While holding so, the trial court also found that the plaintiffs have remitted tax only to an extent of 0.42 Ares of land and thus the claim for exclusive possession cannot be believed. Aggrieved, the plaintiffs preferred A.S. No.44 of 2012 before the Additional District Court-II, North Paravur. In the appellate stage, the plaintiffs contended that the tax receipts produced by the defendants were forged by the defendants through their lawyer, and, to evidence the said fact, a complaint was lodged before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court-II, Aluva as C.C. No.44 of 2014; a copy of the order passed therein was produced as additional document. Additional documents were marked in evidence as Exts.A8 and A9. Nevertheless, the first appellate court concurred with the findings of the trial court and found that the plaintiffs had failed to prove the possessi