MAHANT MURLIDHAR DAS Vs. RAMACHARAN DAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) MAHANT Dayaramdas had executed, according to the non-applicants, a will in favour of one Jamunadas (who is no longer in this world) and first applicant, ramcharandas. Both of the beneficiaries initiated jointly probate proceedings in the course of which an interlocutory 'order was passed against the applicant (Mahant muralidhardas) who preferred a revision against that order to this Court. These are the crucial admitted facts of this case. It is also admitted, importantly, that before the revision was filed Jamunadas had expired and in the revision petition the instant petitioner added as parties the legal heirs of late Jamunadas but that was done without intervention of the Court. The revision failed as this Court refuted the contention that the decision in the earlier will propounded by the same beneficiaries would operate res judicata in the subsequent proceedings, namely, the probate proceedings out of which the instant petition arises.

(2.) IT is to be further noted that in the pending probate proceedings the instant applicant, after dismissal of the revision, filed an application submitting to the Court that the proceeding had abated on the death of one of the beneficiaries (Jamunadas), who had died four years ago. It was then that an application under Section 151 Civil procedure Code was filed by non-applicant No. 2 (widow) and other heirs of deceased jamunadas praying that they be brought on record in place of deceased Jamunadas. By a short order the probate Court allowed the application on the single and short ground that as they had been earlier brought on record in the Revision in the High Court, the question of delay in the matter of substitution did not arise and they would be deemed substituted in the probate proceedings in virtue of the substitution in the Civil Revision.

(3.) SHRI M. L. Gupta, who is appearing for the non-applicants, has made a serious effort to support the impugned order relying on Makhanlal's case, (1977) II MPWN 166. It is true that in that case this Court took the view that when substitution of the legal representatives of the deceased had once taken place it shall ensure for all subsequent stages of the suit. There can be no dispute about this proposition but the question is, whether there was any "substitution" at all of the "legal representatives" of deceased jamunadas in the Civil Revision filed in this Court The answer is short and emphatic No.