- (1.) Defendants 4 and 5 have filed the present appeal with the leave of the Court against the final judgement and order dated 20.2.2002 passed by the High Court of Kerala at Ernakulam in AS No. 167 of 1996.
(2.) By the impugned judgement the High Court has allowed the appeal filed by the respondent-plaintiffs (hereinafter referred to as "Respondents 1 and 2") and reversed the judgement and the decree passed by the trial court. Respondents 1 and 2 and Defendants 1, 2 and 3 (now Respondents 3, 4 and 5) belong to the same family having a common ancestor. They inherited the property jointly which was subjected to a partition in the year 1966.
(3.) The plaint schedule property (hereinafter referred to as "the property") is a portion of the property allotted to the share of Respondents 3-5. There is a pre-emption clause in the partition deed (Ext. A-l) which provides that if any party wants to sell his property, he should first offer it to the members of the Thavazhi (a branch of the family) in writing and that the property shall be sold to outsiders only if no member of the Thavazhi is prepared to accept the offer within a period of six months. The relevant portion of the partition deed (Annexure P-1) reads as under: "... It is decided that the right to sell in case an occasion arises for anyone to sell their property; it can be sold only after giving notice in writing to the other members of the family and only when they do not come forward to purchase the property within a period of six months, to be sold to others.";