They Were Letting Out The Family Property. The Court Sent In A Receiver.
A partition suit was thrown out at the threshold. A Division Bench has restored it, and appointed a receiver to collect the rents while it is tried.
The Court held the trial judge erred in law and in fact. It set aside the order and restored the suit to its original file and number, reversing any step taken to return the plaint. The receiver application was partially allowed, with a receiver to be appointed to collect rents and usufructs, maintain the property and keep accounts — the appointment to be completed within a fortnight. Operation was stayed for thirty days.
- The earlier award was invalid in law, so neither res judicata nor the bar under Order IX Rule 9 applied.
- Evasive denials are not denials. The serious allegations went uncontroverted on oath.
- Relief can be moulded. A wider prayer was cut down to collection of rent, accounts and preservation.
- Delay was called flimsy, the cause of action having arisen only when the unilateral assertion of ownership came to light.
- Court
- High Court at Calcutta
- Bench
- Justice HON'BLE JUSTICE SABYASACHI BHATTACHARYYA, Justice HON'BLE JUSTICE SANDIP KUMAR DE
- Citation
- F.M.A. No. 712 of 2025
- Case
- F.M.A. No. 712 of 2025
- Decided
- 31 August 2026
- Outcome
- Appeal allowed; suit restored and a receiver directed to be appointed
Why the suit should not have gone
The previous award was invalid in the eye of law, so the principle of res judicata and the bar under Order IX Rule 9 of the Code did not apply, and there was no question of suppression of any material fact.
The plaintiffs were not parties to the earlier arbitral proceeding or award, so no knowledge of it could be attributed to them. A conclusive enquiry on that question at this premature stage would have gone entirely beyond the plaint.
The ground of delay was flimsy. On the plaint, the cause of action arose only when the plaintiffs learnt that the defendants' mother was unilaterally asserting ownership by paying property tax and having her name mutated in the municipal records.
Why a receiver was justified
The plaintiffs alleged on oath that the defendants had been letting out portions of the property indiscriminately to third parties, that even the defendants' spouses — not claimed as co-owners — were inducting tenants, and that large salami and rent were being taken and kept out of the list of tenants disclosed.
It was further alleged that the defendants were unilaterally administering, wasting, eroding, destroying and alienating the property through back-dated deeds.
The written objection dealt with those paragraphs but did not deny them. Such denials as there were had been evasive. On oath against oath, the allegations were sufficiently substantiated to make out a case under Order XL Rule 1.
What the receiver will and will not do
Although wider prayers had been made, the Court moulded the relief and granted the lesser remedy: a receiver only to collect rent and usufructs, maintain the property from that income, and keep accounts to be furnished to the trial court at regular intervals.
The initial remuneration is to be borne by the plaintiffs; further remuneration, as assessed from time to time, comes out of the income and goes into the accounts. The receiver may approach the trial court where a substantive management decision is needed.
The appointment and fixing of remuneration must be completed within a fortnight. On the respondent's request, operation of the judgment was stayed for thirty days.
Who argued it
Appearances as recorded in the judgment of the Court.
Frequently asked
When will a court appoint a receiver in a partition suit?
Where specific, substantiated allegations of waste, alienation or unaccounted letting go uncontroverted, as here.
Does an earlier arbitral award bar a partition suit?
Not where the award is invalid in law and the plaintiffs were not parties to it.
Applying for a receiver over disputed family property
- Plead the specific acts — who let out what, to whom, and what was taken — on affidavit; generalities will not do.
- Watch the other side's denials. An evasive answer to a specific allegation is worth as much as an admission here.
- Ask for the narrow relief you can justify: rents, accounts and preservation, not management.
- Meet the delay point from the plaint's own cause of action, not from the date of the underlying dispute.
Source. High Court at Calcutta, F.M.A. No. 712 of 2025, decided 31 August 2026 by Justice HON'BLE JUSTICE SABYASACHI BHATTACHARYYA, Justice HON'BLE JUSTICE SANDIP KUMAR DE. This explainer is written from the judgment text as reported.
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