SHUBH KARAN JALAN Vs. ANANDI DEVI JALAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE judgment of the Court was as follows:- THE stand taken by the executor conjures up visions of a forlorn figure clasping the staff of justice on a burning deck of righteousness. This apparently disinterested executor has travelled from Alipore to New Delhi with a brief stop-over in this Court in his altruistic endeavour to uphold the cause of law. He is indignant at the attempt by a beneficiary under the Will to dislodge him from his high office of executor that, he believes, confers on him the authority to undo an act of illegality committed by the testator in the matter of a bequest. He has carried an independent cause to vindicate the stand that he has taken on a question of law and steadfastly holds his ground.

(2.) THE executor is a son of the executants of a joint and mutual Will of July 30, 2001. THE subject-matter the present proceedings is the bequest therein relating to the tenancy rights in respect of the north-west ground floor flat at premises No.10, Lower Rawdon Street, Calcutta - 700020 which the father of the executor held as a monthly tenant under a trust. THE Will stipulates that such tenancy is to go to a grandson of the testators through another son. Probate of the joint and mutual Will was granted by this Court on September 6, 2007.

(3.) THE grandson instituted a suit before the Alipore Court in 2009 against the executor and the trustees of the landlord trust seeking a declaration that he was entitled to the tenancy rights in respect of the flat; perpetual injunction restraining the defendants and their agents from effecting surrender of the said flat to the landlord or preventing the plaintiff from taking possession thereof; a further injunction restraining the second, third and fourth defendants in that suit from acting in a manner inconsistent with the plaintiff's entitlement to the tenancy right; a decree for recovery of possession from the landlord trust in the event possession of the flat had already been made over to it; a decree for delivery up of the instruments which may have been prepared for surrendering the tenancy in respect of the flat in favour of the trust; and, the other usual reliefs. THE grandson emphasises that the executor was impleaded in the Alipore suit twice over; as the first defendant in his capacity as executor and as the fourth defendant as one of the trustees of the landlord trust.