Published on: December 15, 2023 at 11:20 IST
Court: Supreme Court of India
Citation: Bhagwan Dayal V. Reoti Devi (1961)
Honourable Supreme Court of India has held that Coparcenary is a creature of Hindu law and cannot be created by agreement of parties except in the case of reunion. The law also recognizes a branch of the Hindu Undivided Family as a Corporate Body. The said family whether the larger one or the subordinate one, can acquire, hold and dispose of family property subject to the limitations laid down by law. Ordinarily, the manager, or by consent, express or implied, of the members of the family, any other member or members can carry on business or acquire property, subject to the limitations laid down by the said law, for or on behalf of the family.
The acquisitions made by the Manager of Hindu Undivided Family could not be impressed with the incidents of joint family property. They can only be co-sharers or co-tenants, with the result that their properties passed by inheritance and not by survivorship.
16. The general principle is that every Hindu family is presumed to be joint unless the contrary is proved; but this presumption can be rebutted by direct evidence or by course of conduct. It is also settled that there is no presumption that when one member separates from others that the latter remain united; whether the latter remain united or not must be decided on the facts of each case.
To these it may be added that in the case of old transactions when no contemporaneous documents are maintained and when most of the active participants in the transactions have passed away, though the burden still remains on the person who asserts that there was a partition, it is permissible to fill up gaps more readily by reasonable inferences than in a case where the evidence is not obliterated by passage of time.
Drafted By Abhijit Mishra