RAM CHAND DUTT Vs. ROBERT WATSON AND COMPANY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) GUNGARAM Dutt, Ram Chand Dutt, and Pudma Lochun Butt were brothers, and constituted a Hindu family joint in estate. They also carried on business as money lenders.

(2.) IN the year 1877 Pudma Lochun executed two deeds of endowment, or nirdes patras, one on the 24th of July and the other on the 12th of December. On the former of those dates the three brothers were entitled to a 12-anna share or twelve sixteenths of pergunnah Silda in zillah Midnapore, which they held under three putni bynama patras; the first for a 4-anna share, dated the 29th Srabun, 1268, and registered on the 20th of August, 1861, the second dated the 3rd Cheyt, 1276, Amli, corresponding with the 14th of March, 1869, for a 6-anna share, and the third, dated 13th Kartick, 1283, for a 2-anna share.

(3.) IT is not necessary to review the evidence in detail. It was carefully considered by the District Judge. It seems clear that from the time of the execution of the deed of the 24th of July, 1877, until after the death of Pudma Lochun, a period of about three years and three months, no change took place in the accounts, or in the management, or of dealing with the business or estates, or the proceeds thereof. Mortgages were executed, in which Pudma Lochun joined, and everything appears to have gone on in the same manner as if the deeds had never been executed, except that the family idol was removed from the house of Gungaram to that of Pudma Lochun. No act was done by Pudma Lochun or his brothers in which he was described as Shebait.