AKHTER BEGUM Vs. HASNA BEGUM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant is defendant 4 and respondent 1 when this appeal was preferred was the plaintiff, the other respondents being the other defendants. The plaintiff is now dead and her legal representatives have been brought on record.

(2.) The suit was brought for a declaration that the plaintiff was entitled to a sixth share in the suit proper-ties and that declaration when the suit was brought was considered by the plaintiff to be sufficient since the properties were then in the custody of the Assistant Custodian of Evacuee property functioning under the Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950. The plaintiff's case was that the properties which formed the subject-matter of the suit belonged to a certain Abdul Hye and that after his death they became the properties of his widow Sher Banu. The plaintiff contended that after the death of Sher Banu, her sisters and brothers who were the heirs of Sher Banu became entitled to those properties and that the plaintiff being one such heir was entitled to a sixth share in all the suit properties.

(3.) The principal ground on which defendant 4 resisted the suit was that the purchase of the properties in the name of Sher Banu was benami for her two sons Bashir and Munir and that those two persons had made a gift of all the suit properties to defendant 4 who was being brought up by them. In paragraph 5 of her written statement, defendant referred to a registered deed of gift in respect of items 4 and 5 and stated that the other items of properties were all handed over to the possession of defendant 4 by Bashir and Munir. It is not disputed that Bashir and Munir became evacuees within the meaning of that expression occurring in the Administration of Evacuee Property Act.