(1.) This is an appeal on behalf of the defendant in a suit for declaration of title to immoveable property and for recovery of possession thereof. The disputed property admittedly belonged originally to one Dhir Naran Pandey. On the 8th May 1903, Dhir Naran made a gift of this property to his daughter, Annoda Dasi. On the 4th June 1905, Dhir Naran made a testamantary disposition in favour of his son-in-law, Radha Madhab Bera. Annoda Das died on the 12th January 1906. Dhir Naran himself died in January 1908. Shortly after, on the 13th May 1908, Radha Madhab Bera sold the disputed property to the defendant. The case for the plaintiff is that the property formed part of the estate of Dhir Naran at the time of his death, either because the gift was fictitious and inoperative or because, assuming the gift to be genuine, the property reverted to Dhir Naran as heir to the donee, his daughter, and that in either view, the plaintiff is entitled, as the nephew of Dhir Naran, to take the property by right of inheritance, as there was no disposition of it by the Will. The defendant resists the claim on three grounds; first, that upon the death of Annoda Dasi, the property vested not in her father but in her husband, his vendor; secondly, that upon the death of Annoda Dasi, if the property did not vest in her husband, it passed to the son of her co-wife and, consequently, Dhir Naran did not re-acquire title to the property and, thirdly, assuming that the property re-vested in Dhir Naran upon the death of his daughter, it passed under his Will to Radha Madhab as the universal legatee.
(2.) In so far as the first of these defences is concerned, it is clear, upon the authority of the decision in Ram Gopal Bhattacharji v. Narain Chandra Banerjee Bandopadhya 33 C. 315 : 3 C.L.J. 15 : 10 C.W.N. 510 that as between the father and the husband, the former was entitled to succeed to the ajantuka stridhan property of Annoda Dasi.
(3.) In so far as the second ground is concerned, it is equally clear, upon the decision in Purna Chandra Bysack v. Gopal Lal Sett 8 C.L.J. 369 at p. 427 that the son of the co-wife of Annoda Dasi was not entitled to take the property by right of inheritance.