BADRI NATH Vs. PUNNA DEAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal by special leave has arisen out of a suit brought by Smt. Punna, respondent No. 1, against the two appellants and respondent No. 2 for the issuance of a perpetual injunction restraining the three defendants from interfering with her right to recover her father's share of six annas in a rupee in the offerings made at the sacred shrine of Shri Vaishno Devi Ji which is situated on the Trikutta Hills. The suit was decreed by the trial court whose judgment was upheld in first appeal by the District Judge in a second appeal by a learned Single Judge of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and in a Letter Patent Appeal by a Full Bench of that Court. It is the judgment of the Full Bench (Which is dated the 18th of Jan. 1972) that is impugned before us:

(2.) The averments made in the plaint may be summarised thus. The plaintiff is the daughter of one Bagu who died in or about the year 1959. During his lifetime Bagu and the three defendants were entitled to receive the offerings made at the shrine of Shri Vaishno Devi Ji on certain days falling within every seventh Bikrami Year so that Bagu would have 6/16th share therein and the defendants collectively a similar share. After the death of the plaintiff's father the parties were entitled to receive the offerings in the shares abovementioned on every eighth day in the Bikrami year 2019, the plaintiff having succeeded to the share of her father both under the law of inheritance and by virtue of a will executed by him in her favour. The plaintiff had to resort to the suit as the defendants had started interfering with her right to collect her share of the offerings.

(3.) The defendants contested the suit. They challenged the will set up by the plaintiff as a forged one and further pleaded that only members of four subcastes namely, Khas Thakars, Drora Thakars, Manotra Thakars and Samnotra Brahmins were entitled to receive the offerings and that while Bagu was entitled to a share in the same, the plaintiff was not as she had lost her original sub-caste by marriage outside the four sub-castes mentioned above. The offerings, according to the defendants, were also not liable to devolve by inheritance or demise.