SHAMSHER SINGH Vs. GOBIND SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) APPELLANT has claimed right and title to the property being an adopted son. He remained unsuccessful in suit which he filed and in the first appeal and thus has challenged both the verdicts by filing the present Regular Second Appeal.

(2.) THE dispute goes to pre-partition era and present appeal is pending since 1982. Even the appellant-plaintiff is no more and stands substituted by his L.Rs. Similarly some of the respondents also stand substituted by their L.Rs. on their death and this is so reflected in the amendments carried out in the memo of parties from time to time. Even now, one application is pending adjudication whereby prayer has been made for impleading Gursharan Kaur as respondent No.18 under Order 1 Rule 10 CPC. This application was filed once the arguments in the case were heard and the judgment reserved. The applicant claims herself to be legal heir of Sham Kaur wife of Ganda Singh, whose property is in issue in the present appeal. It is not made clear in the application as to how the applicant has woken to be heard now and where she has remained though suit was filed in the year 1976 and decided in 1979. This application accordingly has been opposed by the respondents and the same shall be dealt with after making reference to the controversy that requires adjudication in the present case.

(3.) THE suit was resisted by the defendants, who are the offspring of Basant Kaur and Baljit Kaur. As per the defendants, the suit land was never owned or possessed by Ganda Singh. They also denied if the appellant-plaintiff was ever adopted by Ganda Singh as his son. It is claimed that he never became the adopted son of Ganda Singh and Sham Kaur. The respondents would plead that the appellant-plaintiff was never brought up, educated or married by Ganda Singh and was never treated as son by Ganda Singh and iSham Kaur. In their reply, the respondents would point out that the appellant-plaintiff is recorded as son of Gurbachan Singh in the school records and so too in the voters list and in the records of the Army service, where he had remained from the year 1939 to 1941. The respondent-defendants would also point out that the appellant had raised a loan from the Co-operative Society, Sukhgarh describing himself as son of Gurbachan Singh. It is claimed that even Gurbachan Singh, the father of the appellant, has also denied the alleged adoption. The deed of adoption which was pressed into service, though not exhibited, is stated to be paper transaction besides urging that appellant-plaintiff was never adopted nor treated as such before or after the alleged deed of adoption which was also destroyed by Ganda Singh. Explaining the mutation of the land in favour of appellant, it is stated that the same was wrongly sanctioned in his favour and presence of Sham Kaur was also wrongly recorded. It is also mentioned that Sham Kaur never made any statement conceding to the adoption and rather had hotly contested the alleged adoption before a civil court in a suit filed by the appellant-plaintiff on 14.10.1958, which was dismissed on 16.12.1959. This suit was filed by the appellant claiming possession of the land belonging to Ganda Singh being his adopted son. Sham Kaur had denied the adoption as alleged by the appellant-plaintiff in the said suit of which she statedly was enjoying the exclusive possession even to the exclusion of the appellant- plaintiff. It is further disclosed in the reply that Sham Kaur had died much prior to six years of the institution of the present civil suit. Accordingly, the ownership of the appellant and his possession over the suit land is denied by the respondent-defendants. According to the respondents, mutation was sanctioned in favour of Sham Kaur, she being the only heir of Ganda Singh, which was never contested by appellant-plaintiff. He also did not even make a claim before the Rehabilitation Authorities for allotment of a land belonging to Ganda Singh and left in Pakistan. It is, thus, claimed that mutation of inheritance of Sham Kaur was rightly sanctioned in favour of Basant Kaur, (mother of defendants No.1 to 4 and Balbir Kaur (mother of defendants No.5 and 5-A).