NAKCHHED SINGH Vs. BIJAI BAHADUR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a plaintiffs' appeal arising out of a suit for possession of certain property mentioned in the plaint. The facts that are either admitted or which have been found by the lower Court and are no longer questioned in this appeal are that the property in suit belonged to one Ram Harakh Singh. In the year 1916 Ram Harakh Singh was murdered by Ram Anand Singh and Ram Narain Singh, against whom the suit was brought by the appellants impleading them as defendants. Ram Anand Singh and Ram Narain Singh both died during the pendency of this appeal in this Court. In their place Bijai Bahadur Singh and Ram Pal Singh sons of Ram Anand Singh have been substituted as legal representatives. They were impleaded as legal representatives of Ram Anand Singh and Ram Narain Singh. These two respondents, Bijai Bahadur Singh and Ram Pal Singh were also impleaded as claiming in their own right. When Ram Harakh Singh died in the year 1916, he left Ms widow, Abhairaji but no issues. Abhairaji, therefore, succeeded to this property as widow's estate and held it until 1933 when she died. On her death one claimant to the property in suit was Menda a daughter of Ram Harakh Singh and Abhairaji but it has been held that under the custom prevailing in this family, daughters are not entitled to the succession of the property of their father and, consequently, Menda's claim to the property was negatived.

(2.) Thereafter the nearest heirs of Ram Harakh Singh were the defendants, Ram Anand Singh and Ram Narain Singh who had murdered him. It has also been found that in case Ram Anand Singh and Ram Narain Singh be excluded from succession to the property of Ram Harakh Singh the nearest heirs claiming under the Hindu Law would be the present respondents, Bijai Bahadur Singh and Ram Pal Singh and thereafter would come the appellants who are more distantly related to Ram Harakh Singh than Bijai Bahadur Singh or Ram Pal Singh. Since I am concerned only with these findings and these findings are not challenged in this Court nor can they be challenged, it is unnecessary to give the exact relationship of the respondents or the appellants with Ram Harakh Singh. The plaintiffs-appellants claim that, since Ram Harakh Singh had been murdered by Ram Anand Singh and Ram Narain Singh not only Ram Anand Singh and Ram Narain Singh are excluded from succeeding to the property of Ram Harakh Singh but even the sons of Ram Anand Singh, who are the present respondents, cannot claim to succeed to that property. This plea of the appellant has been rejected by both the lower Courts. The appellants have come up to this Court only to challenge this view taken by the lower Courts on this plea.

(3.) The learned Judge of the lower Court has quoted extensively from the texts of the ancient writers on Hindu Law and has tried to deduce a principle therefrom in order to apply it to this case. In my opinion, it was wholly unnecessary to enter into any such learned discussion of the texts of Hindu Law. Even the learned Judge himself ultimately had to base the decision on the interpretation of the principle laid down by their Lordships of the Privy Council in -- 'Kenchawa v. Girimallappa', AIR 1924 PC 209 (A). In that case, their Lordships of the Privy Council considered the argument that Hindu Law makes no provision for disqualifying a murderer from succeeding to the estate of his victim and held that it was unnecessary to go into this question. They laid down that the principles of equity, justice and good conscience would exclude a murderer from succeeding to the property of the murdered person. The exclusion of various classes of heirs such as an impotent person, an outcast, a mad man and an idiot under the text of Hindu Law is not necessarily based on the principles of justice, equity and good conscience. In most cases the exclusion is due to some disability where the exponents of the Hindu Law felt that it would be unjustified to allow the property to pass into the hands of such a person. In a case where the exclusion is sought on the basis of equity, justice and good conscience, the principles applied in Hindu Law to those other cases would afford no comparison. The decision of this ease depends almost entirely on the interpretation to be put on the view expressed by their Lordships of the Privy Council in the case cited above.