Telangana: High Court Dismisses Plea on Partition of Property

Hyderabad: Justice M.G. Priyadarshini of the Telangana High Court declared that in the absence of pleadings of an oral partition of hereditary property, the court cannot arrive to a conclusion that there was an oral partition between the parties prior to the filing of the suit. The judge was dealing with an appeal against a decree for partition between siblings, children of the late T.C. Samuel. The daughter of Jannu Ludia Bloosom had filed a suit for the partition of property against her brother and mother. Pending the suit, the mother passed away. It was unsuccessfully contended that at the time of marriage of the plaintiff, considerable amounts were given to her by her father; as such the plaintiff was not entitled for any right or share in the plaint schedule properties and prayed to dismiss the suit. The civil court at Warangal passed a preliminary decree for partition of the suit scheduled property, aggrieved by which the present appeal was filed. Rejecting the appeal, Justice Priyadarshini pointed out that nowhere did the written statement of the appellant state about the oral partition or unwritten partition. In fact, the petitioner was pleading with the court to imagine that there was an oral partition between the parties by contending in the grounds of appeal that permitting the plaintiff to retain the proceeds of sale of Ac.1.10 guntas indicates that there was an understanding that the plaintiff was given her share at the time of marriage. The plea that a will was executed bequeathing the property in favour of the appellant also did not find favour with the court. Refusing to entertain an application for production of the will, the judge ruled that it was unambiguously clear that the party could seek liberty to produce additional evidence at the appellate stage, but the same can be permitted only if the evidence sought to be produced could not be produced at the stage of trial in spite of exercise of due diligence and that the evidence could not be produced as it was not within his knowledge. The trial court specifically found that the appellant who raised the plea of the will had failed to mark or prove the will. The appellant, the court said, failed to establish that in spite of due diligence, he failed to produce the alleged will deed executed by his mother and thereby the interlocutory application filed by the appellant herein is liable to be dismissed. The judge dismissed the appeal and upheld the preliminary decree of partition.

Notice to bank on debt tribunal order

A two-judge panel of the Telangana High Court ordered notices to Canara Bank in a writ plea challenging the order of the Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal directing the petitioner to pre-deposit 50 per cent of the total claim amount for entertaining an appeal. The panel comprising Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice J. Anil Kumar is dealing with a writ petition filed by Naolin Infrastructure Private Limited. It is the case of the petitioner that Debts Recovery Tribunal-II [DRT] granted a conditional order in directing the petitioner to deposit Rs.2,47,50,000. He would contend that there was a credit balance lying in his account and his request to the bank to adjust the amount was rejected. He contended that the interlocutory application filed by the petitioner before DRT seeking a direction to the bank to adjust the amount towards compliance of the conditional order was dismissed and against it an appeal was preferred by the petitioner under Section 18 of the SARFAESI Act, before the Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal at Kolkata. P. Pratap, counsel for the petitioner, argued that DRAT grossly erred in directing the petitioner to deposit 50 per cent of the total claim amount i.e., Rs.84.58 crore. He argued that the DRAT ought to have directed the petitioner to pay 50 per cent of Rs.2,47,50,000/- and his prayer for adjustment of the amount should also have been considered by the DRAT. The panel after perusing the record ordered notices and posted the matter to June 10.