GIRDHAR DAS Vs. RAJA SRI KRISHNA DATT DUBE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The suit which has given rise to this appeal was brought in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Benares of the 8th August, 1910, to enforce a mortgage- bond for Rs. 50,000 executed by one Raja Harihar Dut Cube in favour of Bisambhar Das, the plaintiff s father, since deceased. By this bond, which bears date the 9th October, 1889, Harihar Dutt purported to hypothecate a half share of a large property commonly known as the Jaunpur Eatate in the Jaunpur District then in his possession. Harihar Dutt died in 1892 and on his decease the property carne into the possession of his younger brother Eaja Shankar Dutt Dube. Shankar Dut died three years later. The minor defendant Kishen Dutt was adopted after Raja Shankar Dut s death by his widow under his authority.

(2.) The Court of Wards have assumed charge of the estate during Kishen Dutt s minority.

(3.) The Jaunpur Estate owes its origin to one Sheo Lal Dube who lived towards the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, and appears to have been a man of considerable business ability. For his services to the British Government he had received the title of Raja, which has continued in this family as all its heads in succession seem to have enjoyed it, Harihar Dut and Shankar Dut were fourth in descent from Sheo Lal and in 1879 they were the only persons interested in the Jaunpur Estate. Harihar Dut was admittedly a person of extravagant habits; he had, in the course of the few years during which he had been in possession of the property, contracted debts amounting to several lakhs of rupees. Shankar Dut was evidently more prudent and anxious to preserve intact the ancestral estate and dignity. In order to save the property from ruin in consequence of Harihar Dut s extravagance, the two brothers jointly applied in October, 1878, to the Court of Wards to assume charge of the estate and to discharge the debts with which it had become encumbered. The application was acceded to, and the Court of Wards held the estate for ten years, during which all the debts were paid off and the property was once more solvent. The law which vests in the Board of Revenue as the chief Revenue authority in the Province the powers of a Court of Wards defines the class of proprietors disqualified to manage their property and of whose estates it may assume charge. Among these proprietors are included persons declared by the Local Government on their own application to be "disqualified" (Act XIX of 1873, Land Revenue N. W. P., Sections 193 and 194). Harihar Dut and Shankar came within this category. By a later Act (VIII of 1879, Section 24) a further Section (205 B) was inserted in Act XIX of 1873 which introduced the wholesome provision that:- Persons whose property is under the superintendence of the Court of Wards shall not be competent Co create, without the sanction of the Court, any charge upon, or interest in, such property or any part thereof. And no such property shall be liable to be taken in execution of a decree made in respect of any contract entered into by any such person while his property is under such superintendence.