BODAPATI RAJESWARARAO Vs. PULIGEDDA SATYANARAYANA AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal arises out of an order recording a compromise in a suit for a declaration that the present appellant - -second defendant in that suit - -was not validly adopted by the widow of the maternal uncle of the plaintiffs. The family with which we are concerned comprised originally one Lakshminarasimham who died in May 1934, leaving certain properties, his sister, the present first defendant and another sister Sundaramma who died in 1938, the mother of the plaintiffs. His widow Seethayamma had a number of sisters, one of whom was married to the present third defendant, her son being the minor appellant. She also had a brother, the fourth defendant, who is said to have been acting as the guardian of the appellant. Seethayamma died in July 1941 and she is alleged to have adopted the appellant shortly before her death and to have made a will entrusting to her brother, the fourth defendant, the guardianship of the minor. There were two suits pending at the time of the compromise. One with which we are immediately concerned is O.S. No. 63 of 1941. The connected suit was filed by the same plaintiffs against the sisters of Seethayamma.' Without going into the details of that suit, which is O.S. No. 54 of 1943, we may say that it concerned the title of the estate of Lakshminarasimham to certain properties originally mortgaged in his favour and sold in discharge of the mortgage to the sisters of Lakshminarasimham's wife. The contention of the plaintiffs was that the sisters -in -law were benamidars for Lakshminarasimham and that he was entitled to the properties and that they as his heirs could claim it.

(2.) THE compromise was put into Court by the plaintiffs with an ordinary petition to record it. There was no formal application for leave to enter into the compromise filed on behalf of the guardian ad litem, the fourth defendant. Nor was there any formal certificate by the advocate appearing for the minor that the compromise was beneficial to the minor; but the advocate himself signed the agreement of compromise and this is, in the opinion of the learned trial Judge, a sufficient indication of his opinion that it was beneficial to the minor, though we must point out that the learned Judge was wrong in saying that in the body of the compromise it is stated that the compromise is beneficial to the minor second defendant. There is no reference in the compromise petition to the minority of the second defendant except in the heading thereof.

(3.) NOW the contentions mostly emphasised in the appellate arguments rebate to the procedural defects in the recording of the compromise in O.S. No. 63. The decision in Awadheth Prasad Missir v. Widow of Tribeni Prasad Missir, I.L.R. (1939) Pat. 343 has been quoted as authority for the proposition that not only must the guardian of the minor obtain the leave of the Court to enter into a compromise, but he must obtain that leave before the agreement to compromise is concluded. This decision proceeds on the wording of Order XXXII, Rule 7(1) which says: