DAISY Vs. ANNAMMA GEORGE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiffs are the appellants. THE suit is for partition of one item of property 421/2 cents in extent with a building thereon situated in the city of Trivandrum. THE two plaintiffs claim two out of five shares in the suit property. THE parties to the suit are Protestant Christians in Trivandrum. THE suit property belonged to deceased Leon, a brother of the plaintiffs and the defendants. Leon died in 1968. He had no wife or children According to the plaintiffs his legal heirs are his sisters and brothers. THE two plaintiffs and the 1st defendant are the sisters and defendants 2 and 3 are the brothers of deceased Leon. THE plaintiffs claim 1/5 share to each of the brothers and sisters in the property left behind by deceased Leon. In the plaint they have set up a custom among the community to which the parties belong under which the brothers and sisters inherit the estate of a deceased brother.

(2.) THE defence to the suit is that the plaintiffs and the 1st defendant being sisters of deceased Leon are not his legal heirs under the travancore Christian Succession Act 1092, (hereinafter referred to as the Act), and that defendants 2 and 3 alone are the only legal heirs who inherit the estate of the deceased.

(3.) ON a reading of S. 30 it would appear that a custom of inheritance by male and female heirs among the class of Christians mentioned in the Section appears to have been recognised by the Statute itself.