Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

Family Arrangement & Ouster:

17. It is a combination plea of irreconcilables, which law understands as inconsistent pleadings. Both pleas of family arrangement and ouster pre- supposes that the heirs of Nachammal did have right in the suit properties, and if at all they have lost it, it may be in any one of the aforesaid modes, but not both. This would mean that, if there is a family arrangement under which a co-sharer is divested of his/her right in the property held in co-ownership, then there is no need for the other co-sharer to oust the former; alternatively, http://www.judis.nic.in34/46  S.A.Nos.1236 & 1237 of 2009 if there ought to be an ouster, then it is derivable that there could not have been an earlier divestiture of right of the co-sharer in a family arrangement. 18.1 Though law on pleadings does not prohibit inconsistent pleadings, still during trial, the party pleading them ought to elect one among the various inconsistent pleadings. This was not done in this case, since the 10th defendant, who arrived on the scene following the demise of the first defendant, attempted to sustain both the pleas simultaneously. Stunningly the first appellate court had found merit in both these pleadings and had upheld both of them. And, before this Court, the respondents appear to have decided to elect their defence of family arrangement over the plea of ouster, a strategy which this Court considers as two stages too late. 18.2 On this aspect, the plaintiff starts with a procedural advantage. Since these pleas are mutually inconsistent, the defendant by their attempt to sustain both had only managed to kill the efficacy of both with their own efforts. It has brought the very defense of family arrangement under a huge cloud of suspicion, and it is their creation.