S CHARANJIT SINGH Vs. BHARATINDER SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This order will dispose of Civil Revision Nos. 1577 to 1580 of 1986, as common questions arise therein.

(2.) Jaswant Kaur defendant died on 31-81983 during the pendency of the suit. Teja Singh and others filed an application for impleading her legal representatives, on the basis of registered will dated 20-1-1980. Another application was filed by Charanjit Singh and others for impleading the natural heirs as legal representatives and disputed the genuineness of will set up by Teja Singh and others. The trial Court framed issues in view of the rival applications and after giving opportunity to the parties to lead evidence, by a long order of 17 pages dated 29th April, 1986, came to the conclusion that the will was duly proved and accordingly allowed the application of Teja Singh and others and dismissed the application filed by Charanjit Singh and others. Since there were four different suits, similar orders were passed in all of them. These are revisions against the aforesaid orders.

(3.) A Full Bench of this Court in Mohinder Kaur v. Piara Singh, AIR 1981 Punj and Har 130, has held that determination of the point as to who is the legal representative of the deceased plaintiff or defendant under O.22 R.5 of the Civil P.C. is only for the purposes of bringing legal representatives on record for the conducting of those legal proceedings only and does not operate as res judicata and the inter se dispute between the rival legal representatives has to be independently tried and decided in separate proceedings. In view of this the proper course to follow is to bring all the legal representatives on record so that they vouchsafe the estate of the deceased for ultimate benefit of the real legal representatives. This would also avoid delay in disposal of the suit. In this case the death had occurred on 31st August, 1983 and the trial Court took two years and 8 months in determining as to which of the contesting parties is the legal representative, and write 17 pages in passing the order. If the course suggested above had been followed, all this time and writing long order could have been avoided leaving the parties to get this matter settled in succession suit, on the basic of will or natural succession. I hope that the Subordinate Courts would keep this procedure/course in view while deciding such type of applications.