RAM GOPAL Vs. RAM KUNWARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS second appeal is by Ramgopal, defendant No. 1 in a suit which was instituted by Smt. Ram Kunwari on October 8, 1954, in the court of Munsiff, Sikar. The plaintiff arrayed her mother Smt, Patasi as the other defendant in the suit, and impleaded her sister Smt. Ladi as a proforma defendant. It appears that Smt. Ladi was later on transposed as a plaintiff at her own request because she apprehended that her sister Ram Kunwari had colluded with defendant Ramgopal. The learned Munsiff decreed the suit in part, but it has been decreed in toto by the learned Senior Civil Judge of Sikar on December 22, 1958 on an appeal by Smt. Ladi and this is why defendant Ramgopal has, in his turn, come up in this second appeal.

(2.) IN order to appreciate the controversy, it is necessary to give some salient facts. Surajmal, the father of the plaintiffs and the husband of defendant Smt. Patasi, was a resident of Sikar. He had a brother named Narayan and defendant Ram Gopal is Narayan's son. Defendant Ramgopal claims that Surajmal took him in adoption on Phalgun Sud 2, Svt. 1983 (March 5, 1927 ). Surajmal admittedly died on Mangsar Sud 3, Svt. 2003, leaving behind two daughters Smt. Ram Kunwari and Smt. Ladi, the plaintiffs, and his widow Smt. Patasi. It was alleged by the plaintiffs that, some two years before the institution of the suit, defendant Ramgopal, in collusion with Smt. Patasi, gave himself out as the adopted son of Surajmal and began to make efforts to dispose of a 'nohra' of Surajmal in that capacity. According to the plaintiffs, Ramgopal had never been adopted by Surajmal and they therefore prayed for a declaration that he was not the adopted son of Surajmal, and for an injunction restraining Ramgopal from alienating the 'nohra' or any other property of Surajmal. Ramgopal pleaded, on the other hand, that he was the duly adopted son of Surajmal and that the suit had really been filed at the instigation of Smt. Patasi, against whom he had secured a decree, a little earlier, declaring that he was the adopted son of Surajmal. According to Ramgopal, since that decree, which is dated September 17, 1952 and has been marked Ex. A. 1, was binding on Smt. Patasi, she could not herself get over it, and so she had asked her daughters, who are both married, to challenge the adoption by means of this suit. Some other pleas were taken in the written statement, but it is not necessary to refer to them. No written statement was, however, filed by Smt. Patasi. The learned Munsiff reached the conclusion that Ramgopal's adoption had been proved satisfactorily but he was under the impression that as the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 had come into force in the meantime the plaintiffs as well as the defendants were all heirs of Surajmal and were equally entitled to inherit his property. The learned Munsiff therefore decreed the suit only to the extent of restraining Ramgopal from alienating more than his share of the property. Smt. Ladi preferred an appeal against that decree but Ramgopal felt satisfied with it and did not file an appeal or a cross-objection. When the matter came up before the learned Senior Civil Judge, he took the view that Ramgopal had not been able to prove that he had been adopted by Surajmal. Accordingly, he allowed the appeal and decreed the suit in its entirety as mentioned earlier. This is how the present second appeal of defendant Ramgopal has arisen.

(3.) IT appears to me therefore that the parol evidence on the record is quite sufficient to prove that Ramgopal was taken in adoption by Surajmal, as claimed by him. Then there is the judgment Ex. A-1 dated September 17, 1952, to which reference has been made earlier. For reasons which need not be repeated, that judgment is admissible in evidence by way of corroboration of the fact that Ram Gopal asserted his right as the adopted son of Surajmal in 1951 and that it was recognised even though it was initially denied and disputed by Smt. Patasi herself That judgment lends assurance to the parol evidence of Ramgopal. The evidence taken as a whole makes out a clear case for Ramgopal.