KONDAPALLI VIZIYARATHNAMMINORS BY NEXT FRIEND KONA DALAYYA Vs. MANDAPAKA SUDARSANA RAO MINOR BY GUARDIAN AD LITEM KONDAPALLI VENKATA KRISHNAYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) We are not prepared to differ from the finding of the learned District Judge that the Will is genuine. As he says, the evidence of execution is net very strong, but that is largely attributable to the fact that the parties who row contest the Will accepted the anted upon it for many years, so that when it was challenged many of the witnesses were dead. The fact that the Will, though made by a minor, contained dispositions of property as well as the authority to adopt does not appear to us to afford any indication that it was not genuine. The deceased was 19 and the fact that his minority bed been prolonged to 21 owing to the appointment of a guardian under the Guardians and Wards Act may have been overlooked. The invalid of the bequests appears to have been discovered after his death and 10 attempt was made to give effect to them. This negatives the suggestion that they were inserted in a forged Will with some corrupt intention.

(2.) The widow herself when she was 23 adopted a boy under the authority given in tie Will, and her mother-in law, who now given evidence for the plaintiffs, obtained a maintenance-deed from the father of the adapted boy recon sing the adoption. The preterit case appears to have arisen from the fact that, sometime after the adopters, there was a quarrel between these ladies and the father of the adopted boy. The power to adopt has been questioned as net validly inferred. Section 17(8) of the Indian Registration Act require authorities to adopt, not conferred by a Will, to be reentered. The Will question was registered as a Will, it is said that this was not a valid registration of the power to adopt, because the Will was not presented for registration by the donor or by the done, his widow, or by the adoptive eon, as required by Section 40(2) of the Act. The answer is that an authority conferred by a Will does not require registration. It has, however, been argued that that instrument executed by the does Rs: wax not a Will because the executants boy, a minor, was unable to make a valid Will. Will is defined in the General Clauses Act 1897, Section (57) as including a codicil and every writing making a voluntary posthumous disposition of pre party." The document, therefore, fully satisfies the definition which is applicable to the word "Will" as used in the Registration Act. The question whether effect can be given to the dispositions of property contained in the Will is a different one and must depend on the question of his age at the date of execution, and the further question whether his minority had been prolonged by the appointment of a guardian under the Guardians and Wards Act. These are questions which are beyond the soap of the Registration Act. In confirmedly with this view it was held in Arumugam Pillai v. Arunachallam that 20 M. 254 : 7 Ind. Dec. (N.S.) 181 that the Registration department was not entitled to refuse to register a Will on the ground of the alleged minority of the executant.

(3.) The appeal fails and is dismissed with costs.