BHAGABATI BARMANYA Vs. KALI CHARAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a judgment of the Calcutta High Court delivered by MacLean, C. J., affirming a decree of the District Judge of Murshidabad. The question turns upon the meaning and effect of the will of a Hindu gentleman named Ram Lal Singh. The will was executed on the 2nd of March 1868. The testator died on the following day.

(2.) At the date of the will the state of the testator s family was this. The testator had no issue. His mother and his wife were alive and he had four sisters living. Two were childless widows. The other two had male offspring.

(3.) The will, so far as material, is in the following terms:-- My mother, Phudan Kuraari Barmanya, and my wife, Bhagabati Barmanya, shall, as long as they live, hold possession of all my properties, movable and immovable, and enjoy and possess the same on payment of the collectorate revenue and the Zemindars rents, and by maintaining intact and continuing the service of the established deities and the ancestral rites according to the practice heretofore obtaining, and shall pay off my debts and realise my due s. They shall not be competent in any way to transfer the immovable property to any one. On the death of my mother and my wife, the sons of my sisters, Golap Sundari Barmanya and Annapurna Barmanya, that is to say, their sons who are now in existence, as also those who may be born hereafter, shall, in equal shares, hold the said properties in possession and enjoyment by right of inheritance, and shall maintain intact and continue the service of the established deities and the ancestral rights according to the practice heretofore obtaining.