COMMISSIONER OF WAKFS Vs. AYESA BIBI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application under Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure on behalf of the Commissioner of Wakf, West Bengal. It raises an interesting question.

(2.) A brief account of the facts will set out in good relief the points to be decided in this application. A title suit was filed in the third court of the Munsif, Howrah being title suit No. 21 of 1956 by Aysha Bibi who is the first opposite party in this application. That suit was instituted on or about the 14th day of February, 1956. The prayers in that suit were for a declaration that the Wakf deed executed by Haji Abdul Karim on the 30th March, 1917 was illegal, invalid, inoperative and void and not binding on the plaintiff. There was an incidental prayer for injunction. There were four defendants in that suit. The first three were (1) Mamud Ali who is the plaintiff's husband's brother's son, (2) Abdul Rashid who was the younger son of the plaintiffs husband's brother, (3) the third one is Daud Ali who is the plaintiff's son. (4) The fourth and the last defendant was the Commissioner of Wakf.

(3.) During the career of the suit and when it was about to be heard a compromise petition bearing the date 15th May, 1958 between the first three defendants and the plaintiff was filed in court. The record does not show that any copy of this compromise petition was served on the defendant Commissioner of Wakf. No doubt on the date when the compromise petition was filed by these three defendants and the plaintiff, the Commissioner of Wakf was a party defendant to the suit. The Commissioner of Wakf is not a party to the compromise petition at all. The compromise petition tries to secularise the whole of this Wakf estate.