INDRANARAYAN versus ROOP NARAYAN & ANR.

Citation: [1971] SUPP. 1 S.C.R. 796 · Decided: 07-05-1971 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: K.S. HEGDE · Disposal: Dismissed
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Judgment (excerpt)

796 
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INDRANARA YAN 
11. 
ROOP NARAYAN & ANR. 
May 7, 1971 
[K. S. HEGDE AND A. N. GROVER, JJ.) 
Hindu Joint family-Member separating jrom-Prtsumptiom and 
proof. 
Transfer of Property-Gift-Amounts deposited in fixed deposits in 
joint names of father and son-Property of father-If and when gift in 
favour of son can be inferred. 
The appellant filed a suit against the first respondent for partition of 
their deceased father's properties. The suit was partly decreed by the High 
Court in appeal. Both parties appealed to this Court. The first respondent 
contended inter a/ia that: (I) the appellant had separated himself from the 
family as far back as 1936 and therefore was not entitled to any share; and 
(2) the amounts of the fixed deposits in a Bank and a Company had been 
gifted away to him by the father since the father, a few days before his 
death, instructed the Bank and the Company to transfer the fixed deposit 
amounts from his single name to the joint names of himself and the first 
respondent. 
HELD: (1) The law presumes that the members of a Hindu family 
arc joint, a presumption which is stronger in the case of a father and his 
sons. and it is for the party who plead! that a member of the family ~ad 
separated himself to prove it satisfactorily. For the existence of a joint 
family, the family as ouch need not possess any property since iUs not 
property, but relationship, that knits the members of a family toielher., 
Jn the present case, the appellant, the first respondent, and their father 
were members of a joint family, though the family possessed no property, 
all the properties being the self-acquired properties of the father. There 
was a great deal of disagreement between the appellant and bis f'lther, 
the former expressing now and then that he was not, interested in his 
father's estate, and the latter threatening to disinherit the appellant. 
But 
apart from such mere emotional outbursts there was no evidence at 3.ll to 
show that be had at any time made any unequivocal declaration that the 
appellant had separated himself from bis family nor had be communica~ 
any such intention to separate himscf either to the karta or to any of the 
members of the family. 
[804E-G] 
(2) (a) There was no evidence to show the genuineness of the letters 
alleged to have been written by the father requesting the Bank and the 
Company to transfer the deposits in his name to the joint names of him· 
self and the first respondent 
(b) But even if such letters were in fact written by the father, there 
was no evidence of the general intention on the part of the father to aive 
those amounts exclusively to the first respondent. 
In 
fact about two 
months before his death the father executed a will disinheriting the ap-
pellant but revoked it very soon thereafter. Therefore a mere dit.ection 
to the bank to put the amounts in the joint names to himself and the 
INDRANARAYAN V. llOQPNARAYAN (Hegde,J.) 
first respondent given by the father when he was seriously ill might be 
only a prudent step for facilitating collection, and does not show an in· 
tention to make over the amounts to the first respondent. Since the father 
continued to be the owner till his death and there was nothing to show 
that the father intended that the amounts should go to the first respondent 
exclusively and in pursuance of such an intention transferred the deposits 
io the joint names of himself and the first respondent, there was neither a 
gift nor an advancement. [807F.] 
Guran Ditta v. Ram Datta, I.LR. 55 Cal. 944(P.C.) Pandit Shambhu 
Nath Shivpuri v. Pandit Pushkar Nath, L.R. 71 I.A. 197, Young Sealey, 
[1949] 1 All. E.R. 92, Mrs. Avis Fitzalah Cowdrey v. Imperial Bank of 
India, A.I.R. 1956 Mad. 56 and Dalvi Nagarajamma v. Stale Bank of 
India, A.I.R. 1%2 A.P. 260, referred to. 
' 
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeals Nos. 1096 
and 1097 of 1969. 
Appeals from the judgment and decree 
dated March 24, 
1964 of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Indore Bench in first 
appeal No. 36 of 1959. 
797 
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M. V. Paranjpe, K. Rajendra Chodhary and K. R. Chau-
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dhuri, for the appellant (in C. A. No. 1096 of 1969) and the res-
pondent (in C.A. No. 1097 of 1969). 
S. T. Desai', B. Datta, P. C. Bhartari and J. B. Dadachanji, 
for the respondents (in C.A. No. I 096 of J 969) and appellants (in 
C.A. No. 1097 of 1969). 
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by 
Hegde, J.-These appeals arise from a partition suit
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