KEDAR NATH AMBASTA Vs. RADHA SHYAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The first appeal arises out of a decision of the learned Subordinate Judge of Gaya, dated 1st April 1946, for a declaration that certain transfers made by defendant 7 in favour of the defendants-first-party, that is to say, defendants 1 to 3, were fraudulent without consideration and inoperative as against the plaintiff. The second appeal is directed against the decision of the learned Additional District Judge of Gaya, dated 31st July 1946, affirming that of the Subordinate Judge of the same place in a suit for partition. As both the cases arise out of a dispute relating to the estate of the late Babu Kamta Prasad, and the matters in controversy are, more or less, allied to each other, the two cases have been heard together, and this judgment will govern them both.

(2.) In the first appeal, the suit was commenced by Kedar Nath, brother of the late Babu Kamta Prasad, 'Mukhtar, who died sometime in November 1940, leaving him surviving his widow, defendant 7, and eight daughters, some married and others unmarried. The plaintiff claimed that Kamta Prasad died in a state of jointness with him, and that his widow and his daughters had no right except that of maintenance. The plaintiff's case further is that, on the death of Kamta Prasad, his widow, at the instigation of her sons-in-law instituted proceedings in the Land Registration Department in respect of certain estates which the plaintiff claims as joint family properties. The dispute was settled by a compromise whereby the plaintiff got a moiety share, and defendant 7 the other moiety in respect of the properties in dispute in those cases, namely, the revenue-paying estates. The plaintiff characterized certain recitals in the petition of compromise as wholly irrelevant to the matter then in controversy, and therefore, not binding on the parties. Defendant 7, after the compromise effected on 22nd/28th July, 1941, executed three sale deeds in 1941, 1942 and 1944, ostensibly in favour of third parties but really, the plaintiff further alleged, for the benefit of her sons-in-law without any consideration and without any legal necessity. He, therefore, claimed a declaration that those transactions are not binding on the plaintiff. It will thus appear that the suit has been framed as one by the next reversioner for a mere declaration that the alienations made by a limited owner having a Hindu Woman's estate were not binding on the reversion.

(3.) The suit was contested by the transferees chiefly on the grounds that the plaintiff had no 'locus standi', as a result of the compromise between him and defendant 7, to challenge the transactions, and that the alienations were for legal necessity, namely, for the marriage expenses of Kamta Prasad's daughters and for other valid purposes.