HAZARA SINGH Vs. ATTAR KAUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE only point requiring determination in this appeal is whether Attar Kaur plaintiff is the daughter of Harnam Singh whose name appears in the following pedigree-table which stands admitted between the parties: HUKAM SINGH Chet Lahar Singh Singh Hazara Harnam Mota Singh Singh Singh (defendant. appellant) The dispute relates to the estate of Mota Singh who died in Canada about six years before the institution of the suit. According to the plaintiff, she is the sole surviving heir of Mota Singh, being his brother's daughter. The defendant-appellant contests her alleged paternity without disclosing, however, as to who her father was.

(2.) AT the trial, the plaintiff produced ten witnesses including herself. All of them asserted that she was the daughter of Harnam Singh above mentioned. Two of them, namely, Pritam Singh (P. W. 2), a resident of village Padhri where the plaintiff is married, and Sardara Singh (P. W. 3) who hails from village Chola Sahib where part of the land in dispute is situate and to which Mota Singh and Harnam Singh belonged, have taken the stand that in his lifetime Harnam Singh used to address the plaintiff as his daughter who herself addressed him as her father. The plaintiff appearing as P. W. 10 deposed that she was the daughter of the said Harnam Singh who "regarded me as his daughter and treated me in that manner. " Apart from the oral evidence, reliance by the plaintiff was placed on copy of birth entry Exhibit P. 3 as also on letters Exhibits P. 5 to P. 8. The entry exists in the register of births maintained at Police Station Sarhali in District Amritsar and states that daughter was born to a Hindu Jat woman of village Chola on the 14th of April, 1903, and that the name of the father of the new born child was Harnam Singh, Letters Exhibits P. 5, P. 6 and P. 7 purport to have been written by Mota Singh above mentioned. The first two of them are addressed to Hazara Singh husband of the plaintiff and the third to the plaintiff herself. Letter Exhibit P. 8 purports to have been sent by one Bhan Singh Gill to the plaintiff. All the four letters bear Canada post marks. The evidence adduced in rebuttal consists of the depositions of seven witnesses including the defendant. None of them has categorically dented that the plaintiff was the daughter of the brother of Mota Singh whose estate is in dispute.

(3.) I find myself in complete agreement with the first contention raised on behalf of the appellant that document Exhibit P. 3 does not indicate the identity of Harnam Singh or that of the new born child referred to therein and that, therefore, it provides no supporting evidence to the plaintiff's case. As already pointed out, the entry shows that a daughter was born to a woman of Chola Sahib and that the father of the new born child was Harnam Singh. Now it is true that Harnam Singh, brother of Mota Singh, was a resident of Chola Sahib. But then there is nothing to indicate that no other person by the name of Harnam Singh was residing in Chola Sahib at the relevant point of time. 'harnam Singh' is a very common name amongst the Sikhs and no presumption can be raised, in the absence of evidence to that effect, that only one person by the name of Harnam Singh would be available in a particular village, Another noteworthy factor about the entry is that even if a presumption of that type could be made, the plaintiff cannot derive any benefit there from unless she proves that the child to whom the entry related was herself and no other child of Harnam Singh. There is, however, not an iota of evidence on the record to the effect that Harnam Singh begot only one daughter or that the plaintiff was born in or about the month of April, 1903. Entry Exhibit P. 3 has thus not been connected with the plaintiff and serves no useful purpose.