SURINDER PAL SINGH Vs. JASPREET SINGH AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) When the matter was brought up for admission on 29.11.2012, I adjourned it to 30.01.2013. The petitioner has moved an application for stay in C.M. No. 30148-CII of 2012 and sought for immediate orders. I directed the counsel to argue on all the points when the matter was brought up for hearing on 07.12.2012 and adjourned the case to 11.12.2012. The case was argued by the petitioner and I reserved the case for orders. I have, proceeded to pass the following order. The revision is against the order passed by the Civil Judge, Kurukshetra dismissing an application for direction to the Kanungo to complete the "deficiency in excerpt". The petitioner, who was also the plaintiff in suit has filed a suit for declaration that the plaintiff was the owner of the share of the properties mentioned in the properties listed out in the schedule to the plaint and left behind by late Rajinder Singh son of Devender Singh in the estate of village Jharoli. The plaintiffs contention is that it is a jagir estate of Rajinder Singh and that Bhupinder Singh and Harender Singh had no right to succeed to jagir property left behind by Rajinder Singh and that the plaintiffs themselves being the collaterals of Rajinder Singh's sons and sisters were entitled to the property. In effect, they were seeking for a contention that the property, which was part of jagir estate belonged to the plaintiffs and the mutation effected in favour of the defendants purporting to be heirs of Rajinder Singh was not valid and binding on them.

(2.) It appears that there had been a direction given already by the Court to the Kanungo to prepare the excerpt relating to genealogy from the time of Sardar Bahadur Singh that they had come by succession, the paternal grandfather of Rajinder Singh. The plaintiff had a grievance that in the preparation of excerpt by the Kanungo, he had failed to note the relevant entries in the year 1946-47 and 1958-59. The application was resisted by the respondents contending that the excerpt was being prepared on the basis of jamabandi filed by the plaintiff and it was not clear from where the Kanungo was required to collect the details for preparation of the excerpt. The Kanungo Sham Lal Sunder had given his report and he has been also examined as witness on 11.12.2007. The case has been adjourned for nearly 35 hearings for further examination. The Court found no good reason to allow for the matter to be remitted to the Kanungo again for preparation of the excerpt relating to genealogy.

(3.) I find the entire exercise indulged by the petitioner to be a wholesale waste of judicial time. I cannot quite understand the basis of the plaintiffs claim itself. If the plaint were to be understood that in an erstwhile jagir estate, the succession, would not go to a descendant alone in the male line but would go to a collateral, it means that the plaintiff was actually pleading for a right out of sync with the scheme of succession under the Hindu Succession Act. It is even doubtful whether there could exist any custom or right, which is contrary to the provisions of the Hindu Succession Act by virtue of Section 4 of the Hindu Succession Act, which overrides all customs or rights to the contrary. The Act itself provides certain exceptions and Section 5 is one such exception. Section 5 excludes From the purview of the Hindu Succession Act (i) any property to which succession is under the Indian Succession Act for parties, whose marriage was solemnized under the Special Marriage Act; (ii) any estate, which descends to a single heir by the terms of any covenant of agreement entered into by the ruler of Indian State with the Government of India before the commencement of the Act (rule of Primogenitor) and (iii) succession pertaining to Valiamma Thampuran Kovilagam Estate and the Palace Fund administered by the Palace Administration Board. The jagir does not come under any of the three classes.