ABDULLABHOY ESOOFALLY CHAS Vs. AKBARALLY SAMSUDDIN RAJA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an administration suit. The parties to the suit are Mahomedans and heirs of one Samsuddin Jivaji Raja, who died leaving moveable and immoveable properties. The immoveable properties are situate partly in Bombay, partly in Sidhpur in the territory of His Highness the Maharaja of Baroda, and partly in Siam, which is now an enemy occupied country. Although the suit is for the administration of the estate of the deceased, it is a suit for partition. On the death of Samsuddin Jivaji Raja his heirs became tenants-in-common of the properties left by him. That is why the eminent draftsman who has drafted this plaint has asked in prayer (c) that the estate may be administered by and under the directions of this Court and in prayer (f) that the shares of the plaintiffs and the defendants of the estate may be ascertained and declared and that the estate of the deceased Samsuddin may be partitioned by and under the directions of this Court between the parties entitled to the same.

(2.) IN paragraph 4 of the plaint it is alleged that the deceased left seven immoveable properties described in the schedule annexed to the plaint and marked (B) thereto, IN that schedule item No.4 refers to a house at Islampura in Sidhpur. As regards the item the written statement of defendant No.1 says as follows (para. 4) the property fourthly described in the said exhibit (B) namely the house at Islampura was given as a gift by the said deceased to this defendant. Defendant No.1 has in his written statement denied that the house at Islampura belonged to the deceased Samsudin or that it formed part of his estate. There is a dispute as regards the title to the property between the parties to the suit, namely, whether it belonged to the deceased at the time of his death or whether it was gifted to defendant No.1 as alleged by him. The allegations made on behalf of defendants Nos. 4, 5 and 8 are to the effect that defendant No.1 not only has no title to the property but that he had wrongfully conveyed it to his wife. See exhibit3. It is further alleged that the wife of defendant No.1 who is dead has left as her heirs her husband and several children who are not parties to the suit and are not before the Court.

(3.) IN Halsbury's Laws of England, Vol. XIV, p. 446, para. 850, it is stated that : The judgment for the administration of a deceased's personal estate is not limited to assets within the jurisdiction, even where he died domiciled abroad. Moreover it is a principle of law that where the trustees are within the jurisdiction, the Court will, acting on jurisdiction in personam, order them to carry out the provisions of the trust as they are in duty bound to do.