JAGAR Vs. CHHOTO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The following pedigree table, as stated by the appellant, will be helpful in understanding the controversy.

(2.) Mst. Chhoto plaintiff claiming to be the widow of Ram Kishan, son of Sheo Chand who had pre-deceased his father, instituted the present suit for both items of the property mentioned above. It may be mentioned that Bhartu defendant No. 1 had effected sale of both the said items of property in favour of Jagar, defendant No. 2 on 4th January, 1957 and that Jagar in turn sold the residential house to defendant Jita and Mange Ram in 1958.

(3.) On appeal Shri B.L. Goswamy, District Judge. Sangrur took pains to go into the whole of the material on the record with care in a fairly well-reasoned judgment disagreed with the conclusions of the Court of first instance. According to the lower appellate Court some of the evidence consisting of copies of revenue papers produced in the Court contained a mistake in describing Sheo Chand to be the son of Jawhar instead of Mohra as in Urdu script such a mistake can commonly be committed. This mistake was held established by the learned District Judge from the other evidence on the record and the attending circumstances. The learned District Judge also came to a positive conclusion that Bhartu is a mere adventurer and seems to have been taking undue advantage of the sex or age of Mst. Chhoto or the circumstance that Mst. Chhoto had stopped living in this village after the death of her husband Ram Kishan. The manner in which Bhartu got mutation No. 72 entered in his own name within a couple of days also struck the learned District Judge to be extraordinary suggesting some kind of a collusion or arrangement between him and the revenue officials. Mutation No. 71 also appeared to the District Judge to have been got effected with extraordinary haste. It is desirable to reproduce the exact words of the learned District Judge :-