JATI Vs. RAM KISHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff-appellant had filed this suit for the usual declaration under the Punjab Customary Law that a will dated 8th August, 1962, made by Shri Jitu deceased, who was his collateral in the third degree, shall not affect his reversionary rights as the will had been made in respect of ancestral property. Even though the suit had been filed after the legator had died, the relief for the possession of the property in dispute had not been claimed because the widow of the legator had survived him. The legatee Shri Ram Kishan defendant-respondent was a minor at the time of the filing of this suit and was being represented by the deceased's widow Smt. Tulsan who had been appointed as the guardian ad litem of the minor.

(2.) The suit had been partly decreed by the trial Court in respect of the property that was found to be ancestral qua the plaintiff-appellant. Both the parties had challenged the judgment and decree of the trial Court and whereas the defendant had filed an appeal, the plaintiff had ventilated his grievances in the form of cross-objections. The finding of the trial Court that the parties were governed by custom and that a part of the property devised was proved to be ancestral in nature were accepted as correct by the parties in the lower appellate Court. The defendants' appeal had however succeeded and the lower appellate Court dismissed the plaintiffs' suit in its entirely with the following observations :-

(3.) The plaintiff has, therefore, filed this second appeal against the judgment and decree of the learned trial Court of first appeal.