KESRI ROHAN Vs. GANGA SAHAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The suits, out of which this appeal and the connected Appeal No. 58 of 1907 arise, relate to certain property left by one Bahadur Singh. The plaintiffs in each case claim to be the next heirs of Bahadur Sipgh. The relationship between the parties appears from the following pedigre:

(2.) It is admitted that the four sons of Mihin Lal were separate and that after the death of Bahadur Singh his widow Musammat Lachhman Kunwar succeeded to his property. When Lachhman Kunwar died, Raja Ram, Jian Lal and Kalka Prasad were alive as also was Musammat Gulab Kunwar the step-mother of Bahadur Singh; she was admittedly not an heir to Bahadur Singh. The question is whether Raja, Ram was his heir or whether Jian Lal and Kalka Prasad inherited his property. Raja Ram and Jianlal died subsequently. The property in dispute is claimed on the one hand by the sons of Raja Ram and on the other by Kalka Prasad and by Munshi Lal, the son of Jian Lal. There was a controversy as to whether Raja Ram was the half brother of Gaya Prasad, the father of Bahadur Singh or his uterine brother, but the case has been argued on the assumption that he was Gaya Prasad's half brother.It is admitted that Gaya Prasad and Ganga Prasad were born of the same mother. The question, therefore, is whether an uncle of the half blood succeeds in preference to the sons of an uncle of the whole blood. If Raja Ram was entitled to Bahadur Singh's estate in preference to the sons of Ganga Prasad, his sons are entitled to the property in question and their claim must succeed.

(3.) The question raised in this appeal was not decided in Suba Singh V/s. Sarfraz Kunwdr 19 A. 215 and the Court below is wrong in thinking that it was decided in that case. What was held in that case was that among sapindas of the same degree of descent from a common ancestor, those who are descended from the same mother as the propositus are nearer in propinquity than those descended from a different mother," (see p. 232) and that the distinction of whole blood and half-blood is not confined to the brother and his sons but extends further. The question which we have to determine in this appeal is whether when there is a difference in the degree of relationship, the rule of whole blood and half blood applies.