Summary
The Supreme Court restored the Trial Court's dismissal of a coparcener's suit challenging a sale of HUF land by the Karta. It held that the purchaser had proved legal necessity (debts from the marriage of the Karta's daughter) and was a bona fide purchaser, and that the purchaser could not be made to prove how the price was shared among coparceners, a fact especially within their own knowledge.
Issues
- Whether the suit land was sold by the Karta to the 5th defendant for legal necessity, namely the marriage of his daughter Kashibai.
- Whether the 5th defendant was a bona fide purchaser for valuable consideration though he had not enquired how the sale price was distributed among the coparceners.
- Whether the plaintiff-coparcener's challenge to the sale, brought about five years later, was bona fide.
Provisions considered
- Section 106, Indian Evidence Act, 1872Although the burden of proving that a Karta's sale was for legal necessity lies on the alienee, the Court held that this burden cannot be stretched to require the stranger-purchaser to prove facts especially within the knowledge of the coparceners, such as whether each coparcener received a share of the sale consideration. (¶ 16)
Held
- A Karta has the right to sell joint family property and enjoys wide discretion as to whether legal necessity exists and how it is to be met; whether a sale was justified by legal necessity depends on the facts of each case. A sale by the Karta for legal necessity binds the other coparceners. (¶ 11)
- The plaintiff had not challenged earlier sales of HUF property by the Karta nor taken steps to recover the sums he claimed were promised to him, so the Trial Court rightly treated his plea that those sales funded the Karta's extravagance as an afterthought. (¶¶ 12, 13)
- A sale made some years after a daughter's marriage can still be for legal necessity, since marriage expenses often leave debts that strain family finances over time. The plaintiff's admission that his father told him the land was sold for family needs, and the money receipts signed by two coparceners, the Karta's wife and the daughter herself, established the nexus between the sale and the marriage expenses; the High Court erred in ignoring these facts. (¶¶ 14, 15)
- The onus of proving legal necessity lies on the alienee, but once the purchaser shows a clear nexus between the sale and the family need, his case cannot be rejected merely because all coparceners did not receive the consideration; that fact is especially within the coparceners' knowledge and Section 106 of the Evidence Act prevents saddling the stranger-purchaser with proving it. (¶ 16)
- Where the land stood in the Karta's name and receipts were signed by some coparceners and the daughter, the purchaser acted as a man of ordinary prudence and could not have doubted the Karta's right to sell for legal necessity; he was a bona fide purchaser for value. (¶ 17)
- The plaintiff's explanation that he did not know of the sale for five years because possession was not handed over was untenable in the face of mutation and revenue entries showing the purchaser in possession; the High Court also erred in relying on an unpleaded case that the plaintiff was working elsewhere. (¶ 18)
Result
Appeal allowed; the High Court's judgment and decree set aside and the Trial Court's judgment dismissing the suit for declaration and partition restored.