JAI KAUR Vs. PARTAP KAUR ETC

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In appreciating the facts giving rise to this second appeal by the defendant, the following pedigree table is of assistance.

(2.) In my opinion, the learned Additional District Judge was not justified in remanding the case for a fresh decision. Whatever evidence was available to the parties, they produced it. It was the case of neither of them that they had in their possession, power of knowledge any evidence which they had failed to bring on the record earlier and in the absence of such a case having been set up it was not open to the learned Additional District Judge to send the case back to the trial Court for recording further evidence. In other words, a remand with a direction that further evidence be recorded and then a fresh decision be given was out of the question when no further evidence was said to be available. It was not the case of the defendant that she could produce evidence about Bhagwan Kaur being the widow of Sucha Singh and the mother of Niranjan Singh deceased, and her assertion in the witness-box that relationship should have been weighed in the light of whatever other evidence had been placed on the record. No further probe into the matter was necessary or called for when no desire was evinced by the defendant for such a course being adopted. Nor did the conclusion arrived at by the lower Court about Partap Kaur not being the mother of Niranjan Singh because she had been proved to be the widow of Nikka Singh and the mother of his children indicate the desirability of a remand. If the conclusion was wrong, the learned Additional District Judge should have held it to be so and if it was right, he should have sustained it. It was his duty to consider the entire evidence on the record and to come to his own findings about the relationship of the parties to Niranjan Singh deceased, when all the evidence which the parties desired to produce in that connection had been placed by them before the trial Court. In remanding the case the learned Additional District Judge has asked the trial Court to make a fishing enquiry in spite of the fact that neither of the parties desires it. His remand order is, therefore, held to be improper.

(3.) For the reasons stated I accept this appeal, set aside the impugned order and direct that the appeal be heard by the District Judge, Faridkot, who has now the territorial jurisdiction in the matter and in whose Court the parties shall appear on the 22nd October, 1973. No order as to costs.