KUNDAN LAL Vs. ATAM PARKASH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I . Law involved The point involved in the second appeal is whether a person, who has taken to Sanyas leaves his blood relations as heirs or the spiritual lineage of a Chels to take right in the property left behind by the Sanyasi. II. Geneology - Basis for claim of the respective parties

(2.) THE plaintiff's suit was dismissed by the trial Court and the Appellate Court. The plaintiff filed the suit for recovery of possession of the property in the hands of the 1st defendant, who admittedly claimed to be a Chela of Gokal Chand @ Kesar Bharti. The genealogy as brought through the pleading is reproduced: -

(3.) DURING the course of trial, the plaintiff introduced rather a strange contention that Kesar Bharti had married before partition in the place now in Pakistan and had even a child who was later anointed as Kishan Bharti, who was the 1st defendant. The attempt of the plaintiff was to show that Gokal Chand was not a Sanyasi attached to any religious order whose death could deviate succession from blood relations. The trial Court found on a matter of fact that the deceased Kesar Bharti was a Sanyasi, who renounced the world and the 1st defendant had also been anointed as his Chela by appropriate religious ceremonies. Evidence of villagers and persons connected with the 1st defendant had been examined and photographs had also been filed to show that there had been a Pagri ceremony and the assumption of the religious office was accompanied with all religious rituals. The trial Court also reasoned that the plaintiff's contention that Gokal Chand had married and the 1st defendant, who was actually his own son, was actually destructive to the plaintiffs own case, for if he had been married and the 1st defendant was his son then the plaintiff could not even treat himself as a legal heir to stake a claim in the property. The Appellate Court affirmed all the findings.