GANGARAM BHIKU MAHADIK Vs. BAPUSAHEB DAULATRAO MAHADIK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff in this suit is a Sardar and Jahagirdar in the Gwalior State. His estate is in the management of the Court of Wards, and he has filed this suit through the Court of Wards against the defendants to recover possession of certain property in the Satara District alleged to belong to the plaintiff. It is admitted that the suit property belongs to the plaintiff's family. But the defendants claimed that they have been in possession of the suit property as the descendants of one Dhondi, who, it is asserted, was the dasiputra of Janrao. It is admitted that there in no decisive evidence in favour of that assertion; and no doubt there would be very great difficulty in proving the connection between Dhondi's mother and Jaarao, considering the time chat has elapsed. But it has been urged upon us that there are surrounding circumstances from which we must necessarily infer that Dhondi was a dasiputra. The descendants of Dhondi have used the same family surname as the plaintiff. They have been living in the family wada in the village of Ninam since the time of their ancestors. They have not paid any rent. They have paid assessment direct to Government, and reliance was placed on a letter written by Daulatrao, the father of the plaintiff, to Laxman, defendant No. 3, using such terms which would ordinarily be used to a relation, and not a stranger.

(2.) Now it may be even assumed that Dhondi was the illegitimate son of Janrao, and that the possession of his descendants of this property in the Satara District was the natural consequence of that connection, but it does not follow that Dhondi was the issue of a permanent mistress; and we agree with the very careful analysis of all the circumstances urged by the appellants of the learned Judge in the Court below, that they are not sufficient to enable the Court to conclude that Dhondi was a dasiputra.

(3.) Against the circumstances which are relied upon as leading to an inference that Dhondi was a dasiputra, there are these facts that the third defendant in 1910 executed a rent-note at Gwalior in favour of the plaintiff's father, and that in 1915 defendants Nos. 1 and 2 executed at Satara a rent-note in favour of the present plaintiff.