"This May Involve A Little Bit of Give And Take", SC Tells Parties In A 30-Year Old Partition Dispute

The Supreme Court bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta, today advised parties to a dispute over a partition suit filed in 1988, to opt for amicable settlement.

The Civil Appeal, A.M.Padmini Amma & Anr v V.P.Muraleedharan & Ors, heard by the bench, originated in a partition suit filed in 1988, by the descendants of a common ancestor in Kerala. There are 72 defendants and one plaintiff.

Today, when the matter came up for hearing, the bench observed: “In our opinion, this is a matter that is eminently suitable for amicable settlement. It must be kept in mind by the parties that four generations are involved in the litigation. Some of the parties are extremely old and we are told that some of them are well above 80 years of age. The suit was filed some time in 1988, that is, almost 30 years ago, and is still at the stage of preliminary decree.”

The bench, therefore, requested the counsel for the parties to use their good offices to advise them to enter into an amicable settlement.

“This may involve a little bit of give and take, but that will ultimately be in the long term interest of the parties”, the bench concluded in its order.

The matter was decided by Justice Kurian Joseph (when he was a Judge of the Kerala High Court) and Justice Harun-Ul-Rashid in favour of the defendants in 2007. A review petition filed by the plaintiff was also dismissed in 2009 by the same bench. The appeal in the Supreme Court is against both the dismissals.

The dispute, in short, is over whether the family estate has to be divided per stirpital basis or per capita basis. As per the stirpital basis, each branch of the deceased person’s family receives an equal share of the estate. The plaintiff wants division per stirpital basis.

The bench directed the listing of the matter after four weeks. Senior advocate, R.Basant appeared for the appellants, while senior advocate, Thomas P.Joseph represented the respondents.