INDER SINGH Vs. CHHAJU SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN order to understand the facts giving rise to these two connected revision petitions, the following pedigree-table may be stated : For Pedigree-table See next page.

(2.) IN June 1968, Inder Singh filed a suit against Chhajju Singh, Tara Singh and Hoshiara Singh for possession of half share in the property left by Harnama. His allegations were that Harnama died on 30th May, 1961, without leaving any heir of Class I of the Schedule to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 with the result that the plaintiff and Chhajju Singh became entitled to his estate in equal shares, they themselves being heirs of Class II of the said Schedule. Tara Singh claimed himself to be adopted son of Shyama, but the plaintiff did not admit that relationship. Even if its was held that he was actually so adopted, he was not entitled to succeed to the estate of Harnama because he was an agnate. It was further stated in the plaint that Chhajju Singh had got the entire estate of Harnama illegally mutated in his favour on the basis of a will alleged to have been executed by Harnama. The said will was not valid, Hoshiara Singh brought a suit in 1963 challenging the said mutation and alleging that he was the adopted son of Harnama and entitled to succeed him. That suit was dismissed in June 1967 and the appeal against it was also rejected in May 1968 but it was held by the Appellate Court that the entire land left by Harnama was ancestral and if any will or gift was executed in favour of Chhajju Singh, the same was illegal. It was held that adoption of Hoshiara Singh had not been proved. It was further held that on Harnama's death succession had opened out and the suit of a declaratory nature filed by Hoshiara Singh, being merely speculative, did not lie. All these findings given in that judgment according to the plaintiff, were binding on the parties to the litigation.

(3.) THE suit was contested by Chhajju Singh and Tara Singh. The case set up by Chhajju Singh was that Harnama had not died on 30th May, 1961 but his death took place on 26th November, 1960. Shyama was alive when Harnama died and he alone was entitled to succeed to him if the latter died intestate. The plaintiff had Chhajju Singh were not the only heirs, because there was also a daughter, Kartari, of Waryama brother of Shyama, and she was also an heir. Tara Singh was validly adopted by Shyama, who died on 21st April, 1961, after the death of his real brother, Harnama. Chhajju Singh set up a will dated 12th February, 1957 which, according to him, had been validly executed by Harnama in his favour and according to that, he was Harnama's sole heir and, consequently, the mutation had been validly sanctioned in his name in January 1963. The findings given by the Appellate Court in Hoshiara Singh's case, according to him, were not res judicata.