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 New Law Reports Volume 50, Page No 197 1948     Present: Dias and Gratiaen JJ. DHARMADASA, Appellant, and MERAYA, Respondent S. C. 389-D. C. Panadure, TK 525/25,438 Civil Procedure Code-Partition action-Amendment of final decree-Accidental slip or omission-Failure to notice reservation of life interest in deed-Jurisdiction to amend-Res judicata-Section 189. A partition action proceeds on oral as well as documentary evidence and the failure to notice the reservation of a life interest in a deed is an accidental slip or omission which gives the Court jurisdiction to amend the decree under section 189 of the Civil Procedure Code. Where a decree is so amended with notice to the parties it is res judicata and cannot be attacked in a collateral action. APPEAL from a judgment of the District Judge, Panadure. E. B. Wikramanayake, K.C., with H. Wanigatunga, for plaintiff, appellant. H. W. Jayewardene, for defendant, respondent.  Cur. adv. vult.  November 28, 1948. ...

  CO OWNERSHIP AND PARTITION W. R. Bisschop, LL.D. “Nemo invicem in communione manere debet.” This maxim formed in the Civil Law the basis of a mode of acquisition of property. If the co owners of property could not come to a mutual understanding as to its division, partition could be enforced by any one of them against all the others, and the adjudication of the judge was considered as forming for each person the proprietary title to such part as had been allotted to him. The judgment formed a similar proprietary title in the case of a division of an inheritance and in an action for the regulation of the boundaries of neighbouring lands. The mode of procedure was clearly set out, and by the practice of centuries the rules as to these actions had been well established. The actions were duplices that is to say the parties might be called upon to act both as plaintiffs and defendants. They were mixtae as being both in rem and in personam. They were bona fidei. With all these vari...

  786    Introduction An attempt was made by Governor North to introduce a systematic land recording system which would have resolved several problems associated with land ownership in Sri Lanka. His principal concern lay in the adverse consequences of holding land in undivided shares. Accordingly, the initiative was directed towards the partitioning of such lands and the maintenance of proper records. However, this attempt ultimately failed. During the early nineteenth century, extensive land development activities took place. Unfortunately, these developments did not adequately consider the necessity of maintaining systematic land records, resulting in a significant administrative gap. By around 1840, various authorities began emphasizing the importance of establishing a structured system of land records. This led to the enactment of legislation in 1863, which introduced a system of registration of deeds across the country. Subsequently, an attempt was made to i...

 

  786 Amendment of Pleadings in Sri Lankan Law   A Doctrinal Reconstruction in a Modern Judicial Framework I. The Significance of Pleadings in Civil Justice   In every system of civil justice, pleadings perform a function that is both foundational and indispensable. They are not mere procedural formalities, nor are they ornamental statements drafted to satisfy technical requirements. Rather, they constitute the intellectual and legal framework within which a dispute is defined, contested, and ultimately resolved. Through pleadings, each party discloses the material facts upon which reliance is placed, thereby enabling the opposing party to respond and the court to identify the precise matters in controversy.   Yet the process of litigation is not immune from human limitation. Errors of omission, misdescription, imperfect articulation, and even misapprehension of legal rights may occur at the stage of drafting pleadings. It is for this reason that the ...

  786 Below is a fully developed thesis. Medawala Lekamalage Sujatha Medawala v Medawala Lekamalage Laxman Medawala, SC/Appeal/41/2024 P. Dona Ransohamy v S.A. Dona Gunawathi, SC Appeal 132/2014 and R.A.S. Kulawardena v   Identification of the Corpus in a Partition Action   CHAPTER X Identification of the Corpus in Partition Actions 1. The Foundational Nature of the Corpus   1.1 A partition action, though often perceived as a dispute between co-owners, is in truth an action directed against a res. The court is invited not merely to declare rights inter partes, but to determine, with a high degree of conclusiveness, the legal status of a specific parcel of land and to effect its division or disposition. The subject matter of the action is therefore not abstract ownership, but a concrete and identifiable corpus.   1.2 From this premise flows a fundamental proposition: the jurisdiction of the court in a partition action is anchored to the ex...