Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

(13) The learned counsel for the defendant respondent has placed strong reliance on a decision of the Privy Council in Ram Rattan v, Parma Nand, (1946) 1 Mad LJ 295 : (AIR 1946 PC 51). The salient facts of that case are that in a suit by one Hindu brothers against another for partition it was pleaded in defence that there has already been a partition, and two unstamped memoranda showing the details of the partition were relied upon to corroborate the oral evidence as to prior partition. The bulk of the Joint properties was divided by metes and bounds and only a small portion of immovable properties was kept joint. Their Lordships of the Judicial Committee held that the unstamped memoranda showing the details of the partition by metes and bounds were wholly inadmissible because it could not be received in evidence "for any purposes" under Sec. 35 of the Stamp Act. These memoranda were also unregistered and therefore came under the ban of Sec. 49 (c) of the Registration Act, also. The Judicial Committee said :

" The Judicial Committee did not refer to the difficulty of admitting other evidence when the transaction was admittedly reduced to writing and that writing was inadmissible either under Sec. 35 of the Stamp Act or under Sec. 35 of the Stamp Act or under Secs. 17 and 49 of the registration act. But there is no doubt that the Judicial committee had no difficulty in finding a partition on other evidence . But whether other evidence is admissible to prove the details of the partition is still open to doubt. It is not clear whether oral evidence was accepted only if proof of the division in status or to prove the details of the partitions. when the question directly arises hereafter in this Court, we may have no consider whether the Full Bench decision in 1944 2 Mad LJ 164 : ( AIR 1944 mad 550 FB ), is good law after the decision of the Judicial Committee.