CHAMELI DEBI Vs. PURUSATTAM SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These second appeals are preferred by the plaintiffs in a cross suit against common appellate judgment and decree dismissing her suit and decreeing the earlier suit of the respondents briefly in the following circumstances : The respondents in the present appeals filed a suit for declaration of their title and possession and for partition of certain immovable property on the basis of a registered conveyance executed by the deceased mother of the present appellant in favour of the minor respondent, son of respondent No. 1 being title suit No. 1 of 1961 in the third Court of Subordinate Judge at Howrah. Their case inter alia was that the executant in order to defray the expenses of litigation, maintenance, medical expenses etc. had to incur loans and for repayment of these loans she sold the disputed property in consideration of a sum of Rs. 5,000/-. But as the purchasers could not get possession owing to the obstruction caused by the present appellant and her men, they were compelled to take recourse to law.

(2.) In this suit the mother of the present appellant was defendant No. 1 and the appellant was defendant No. 2 and the defendant No. 3 was the son of the defendant No. 1. There were other pro forma defendants who were also made parties, possibly, for the purpose of partition of the disputed property. The joint defence taken by the defendant Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in their written statement was, in substance, apart from the general denial of material allegations that the mother of the present appellant Lilia was an old, Pardanashin, illiterate woman of over 80 years and she was pursuaded to sign the document of conveyance without knowing the contents thereof and without the document being read over and explained to her on the impression that the conveyance was really a deed of mortgage for Rs. 1,400/- which she incurred as loan from the father of the purchaser namely the respondent No. 1. Further specific case was that the conveyance was fraudulent, collusive and obtained by the father of the respondent No. 1 under undue influence and coercion taking advantage of the helpless condition of the mother of the appellant.

(3.) Later in 1962 Lilia and her daughter the present appellant filed another suit exactly on the line of the defence taken in the earlier suit by them against the present respondents, inter alia for a declaration that the disputed conveyance was illegal, void and inoperative and fraudulent and for cancellation of the document with other consequential reliefs. The present respondents contested this suit and their defence was, in substance, the repetition of the allegations made in their plaint instituted by them earlier in 1961.