ABDUL SERANG Vs. PUTEE BIBI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) We think the learned District Judge has fallen into the error, which more than one writer on Mahomedan law have referred to in their works, of supposing that the "distant kindred" are restricted to the four classes, who are usually enumerated as primarily standing in that relation to the deceased. We find, however, in Mr. Rumsey's work on the Mahomedan law of Inheritance, which is a work of some authority, as well as in Baillie, which is also authoritative, that the right of inheriting extends to the whole kindred of the deceased, and that it is an error to suppose that the right is limited to certain degrees or classes of relations. This observation Rumsey makes in a note to a passage on page 12 of his work, where he defines the "distant kindred" as including all relations, who are neither sharers nor residuaries. The appellant is not only a relation, but is a near relation of the deceased; and, in our opinion, he comes within the definition which we have just referred to and which Mr. Rumsey derives from an authoritative Mahomedan source.

(2.) That being so, the order appealed against must be set aside and the case remanded to the Court below for trial on its merits.

(3.) Costs will abide the result.