BADRI NATH Vs. PUNAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Letters Patent appeal from the judgment dated November 28, 1968, of Mian Jalaluddin J. which arises out of a suit brought by the respondent in the Court of the Sub -Judge, Reasi, for perpetual injunction restraining the appellants from interfering with her right to recover her fathers share of six annas in a rupee out of the chartal (offerings) made at the sacred shrine of Shri Vaishno Devi Ji (which is situate on the Trikutta hills) has been referred to this Bench as the Division Bench before which it initially came up for hearing was of the opinion that it involved substantial question of law of great public importance relating to the interpretation of the provision of the Hindu Succession Act and the right to inherit and transfer a share of the offerings made at the aforesaid sacred shrine.

(2.) THE plaintiff -respondents case as set out in her plaint was that she was the daughter of Bhaggu who died about seven years before the institution of the suit, that her father and the appellants were entitled to equal shares in the aforesaid offerings, that she was entitled to the share of her father in the offerings on the basis of the Hindu Succession Act as also on the basis of a will dated Magh 22, 2011 (Samvat) executed by her father in her favour, that the turn of the parties to recover offerings made at the holy shrine comes after every six years and that although out of the offerings she was entitled to six annas in a rupee and the appellants were also entitled to the same extent, the latter were illegally interfering with her right and preventing her from collecting her share of the offerings.

(3.) THE appellants contested the suit Inter alia on the grounds that the will set up by the plaintiff was spurious, that only four sub -castes namely Khas, Droras, and Manotra -Thakars, and Samnotra Brahmins, were entitled to recover the offerings and as the plaintiff had lost her original sub -caste by marriage and did not belong to any of the aforesaid sub -castes, she was not entitled to the offerings that no Hissadar was competent to transfer by sale, mortgage or will his right to collect the offerings, and that even under the Hindu Succession Act the plaintiff was not and could not be entitled to the offerings.