Owelty - Indian Laws - General

Owelty As per Black s Law Dictionary (2nd Edn., page 865): Owelty. Equality. This word is used in law in several compound phrases, as follows: 1. Owelty of partition is a sum of money paid by one of two coparceners or cotenants to the other, when a partition has been effected between them, but the land not being susceptible of division into exactly equal shares, such payment is required to make the portions respectively assigned to them of equal value. 2. (Owelty of services) ............... 3. Owelty of exchange is a sum of money given, when two persons have exchanged lands, by the owner of the less valuable estate to the owner of the more valuable, to equalize the exchange. Ballentirie s Law Dictionary (1948 Edn., page 923) defines : Owelty of partition, A sum paid or secured, in the case o partition in unequal proportions, by him who has received the larger portion to him who has the less, for the purpose of equalizing the portions; it is pecuniary compensation decreed, by the court in actual partition to adjust an inequality of the shares not justified by the interests of the parties in the, estate. The application of the term is confined to the partition of lands. Freeman in Co-tenancy and Partition describes owelty thus ; Owelty : When an equal partition cannot be otherwise made, Courts of equity may order that a certain sum be paid by the party to whom the more valuable property has been assigned. The sum thus directed to be paid to make the partition equal is called owelty . It is a lien on the property on account of which it was granted. The law cannot contemplate the injustice of taking property from one person and giving it to another without an equivalent, or a sufficient security for it. PARVATHI AMMA VERSUS MAKKI AMMA - 1961 (8) TMI 38 - KERALA HIGH COURT