Mathureswara Bhattar and Another vs Karpura Kutti Bhattar and Another

As the District Judge has pointed out the defendants were under a legal obligation to joint the plaintiffs in the puttahs tendered to the tenants.

Section 3 of the Rent Recovery Act requires the Inamdar to grant a puttah to the tenant and under the rulings of this Court when there are joint

Inamdars all of them must join in granting the puttah. u/s 7 of the same Act rent cannot be recovered unless such puttah has been granted. Owing

to the defendants'' refusal to join the plaintiff the rents for the faslis named in the plaint have become irrecoverable and the plaintiffs'' share has been

lost to them. In circumstances such, as the present, we think that there was not only a legal obligation on the defendants with reference to the

tenant, but also between them and the plaintiffs inter se. To hold otherwise would be lo allow a co--owner with impunity so to conduct himself in

regard to the common property as would result, in its being damaged or destroyed. If there is one obligation between co--owners stronger than

another, it is that each shall do what is just, reasonable and necessary for the preservation of the joint property. Dealing with the obligations

springing from the relations between co-owners Domat lays it down generally that those who have an affair or other thing in common together are

mutually accountable to one another for their management and their conduct in relation to it, and every one of them must answer for the damage or

loss which they may have occasioned to the common thing (Civil Law, Article 1402). In this case the refusal of the defendants to sign the puttah

entailed loss to the plaintiffs, and if that refusal was not justifiable, the defendants are clearly liable to the plaintiffs in damages. Assuming that the

plaintiffs could obtain partition of the joint estate, that fact does not debar them from their remedy for damage to that estate while it remains joint.

The order of remand was therefore right, and the appeal is dismissed with costs.