Report No. 86
Chapter 2
History
2.1. History of the Act.-
The circumstances in which the Partition Act, 1893 came to be enacted are interesting. Indian statute law, as it stood in 1892, did not contain any provision empowering the Court to direct a sale and division of the proceeds of sale in partition suits. The Code of Civil Procedure1 (as then in force) dealt with the procedure for the partition of lands paying revenue and lands not paying revenue respectively.2 But the relevant sections of the Code authorised the Court only to divide the property (and, in some exceptional cases, to award money compensation for equalizing the value of the shares). The Court could not direct a sale of the property followed by a division of the property that remained. It was bound to give a share to each of the parties.
1. Sections 265 and 396, Code of Civil Procedure, 1882.
2. See para. 2.11, infra.
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