ETHAL WALTERS Vs. AJIT DATT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) CONTROVERSY in this testamentary suit concerns the estate of late Smt. Maud Flora Datt wife of late Sri E.E. Datt, who died issueless and intestate at Allahabad on 5 -12 -1980.

(2.) ON May 5, 1981 Smt. Ethel Walters, sister of the deceased Smt. Maud Flora Datt (hereinafter described as Maud Datt) presented a petition (Testamentary Case No. 7 of J 981) before this Court praying for the grant of Letters of Administration in respect of the estate of the deceased, specified in Annexure -1 to the petition. According to her, Smt. Maud Datt had, apart from the Petitioner, left behind three brothers, two real and two half sisters as her next of kins. She came to know that Sri Ajit Datt, son of Sri E.E. Datt's brother Archibal Datt, had, claiming himself to be the adopted son of Smt. Maud Datt and her husband E.E. Datt, filed a suit in the Court of Munsif ChaiJ, Allahabad (Suit No. 898 of 1980)(Ajit Datt v. Snail Sirdar) praying for a mandatory injunction restraining the Defendants of that suit from changing or altering the shape of one of the properties comprised in the estate of the deceased, Smt. Maud Datt. According to the Petitioner there is no provision for adoption either in the Christian Law or in the Indian Succession Act and the alleged adoption of Ajit Datt by E.E. Datt and Smt. Maud Datt is absolutely invalid, and that she being the next of the kin of the deceased, is entitled to maintain the petition for the relief claimed by her. The Petitioner also requested that notice of the petition be issued not only to the next of the kins named by her but also to four others including Sri Ajit Datt who, according to her were, in the circumstances of the case, proper parties in these proceedings.

(3.) SRI Ajit Datt put in a caveat and also filed a counter affidavit (paper No. A -8). In that affidavit he contended that soon after his birth he was adopted by and baptised as the son of Sri E.E. Datt and Smt. Maud Datt in accordance with the custom of adoption prevailing amongst Indian Christians and in the family of late Sri E.E. Datt and Smt. Maud Datt. He contended that the said custom is not contrary to the principles of Christianity. In paragraph 11 of his objections Ajit Datt went on to assert that his grandfather late Rai Saheb Jeewan Datt owned considerable property and the family had a custom whereby succession was in accordance with the Hindu Law and daughter got no share in their father's property. His ancestors were originally Hindus residents of undivided Punjab and were governed by Mitak -sbara School of Hindu law and the law and custom both recognised adoption of male child. The family, after conversion, carried along with them their ancestral customary law in the secular aspects and the conversion to Christianity merely resulted in change in mode of worship. He, therefore, contended that in his presence, that is in the presence of the son of Smt. Maud Datt, the Petitioner who is merely her sister, is not entitled to take out the Letters of Administration in respect of the estate left by the deceased.