I have a friend from a rural background with a family litigation on ancestral family farmland and house. Three of his family members as plaintiffs filed a suit against 9 members of the same family as defendants (my friend being one of them) for partition and separate possession of their ancestral farmland and ancestral house. The suit was decreed. The 3 plaintiffs filed FDP which is still pending. During the pendency of the FDP, the 3 plaintiffs and 6 out of the 9 defendants colluded with each other and sold their undivided shares of the joint family properties to a total stranger to the family. The sale was done behind the back of the 3 contesting defendants and was also without the permission of the trial court. The 3 plaintiff and 6 defendants had not taken the right of first refusal from the 3 defendants.Subsequently the stranger purchaser filed an interim application in the FDP to be impleaded as plaintiff no:4. The trial court after considering the objections of the 3 defendants rejected his application. The stranger purchaser took the matter to the High Court. Very curiously the High Court while allowing the stranger purchaser's appeal, refused to implead him as plaintiff no:4 but permitted him to be impleaded as defendant no:10 in the FDP. The cause title in the FDP was amended accordingly showing the stranger purchaser as defendant no:10. More than Six months thereafter, the defendant stranger purchaser has now moved the Trial Court seeking to be transposed as plaintiff no:4, to which my friend has strongly objected. The question for consideration is whether a stranger purchaser who was impleaded as defendant no:14 by the High Court can now be permitted to be transposed as a plaintiff. From the little knowledge I have on Hindu law, only members of the family can be transposed from plaintiff to defendant and vice versa. I believe this concession cannot be extended to a person who is not a member of the family and is a stranger to the family. Kindly advise.
