By marrying the sister of the plaintiff the defendant cannot claim to be the member of the undivided family of the plaintiff.
On the evidence on record we do not find any common bond or cementing factor bringing both of them within the fold of an undivided family. Sudhanya and Amulya's wife had a common father but not Amulya. They were thus not agnates, they had no relationship by blood on their maternal side so they were not cognates. The two families of Amulya and Sudhanya were brought close to each other by Sudhanya's sister's marriage with Amulya, this by no stretch of imagination effected integration of the two families, their separate identities did not merge, rather continued.
They never lived together nor messed together. We, therefore, find no bond of union tying up Sudhanya and Amulya as members of an undivided family. However, liberally we try to interpret the term 'family' we cannot overlook the above stubborn fact. We, accordingly, conclude that respondents the heirs ofAmulya and Sudhanya were not members of an undivided family at any point of time and accordingly they were not entitled to purchase appellant's share in the dwelling house which he has acquired from Sudhanya.
Calcutta High Court
Dhirendra Nath Sadhukhan vs Tinkari Sadhukhan And Ors. on 30 September, 1983
Equivalent citations: AIR 1984 Cal 397, 1983 (2) CHN 343
Bench: C Mookerjee, N G Chaudhuri
