SATGUR PRASAD Vs. HAR NARAIN DAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are consolidated cross-appeals against a decree of the Chief Court of Oudh dated 2 May, 1928. The appellant in the one case, Satgur Prasad, was the principal defendant in a suit instituted on the original side of the Chief Court, which was decided against him both by the trial Judge and the Court of appeal. In the other the plaintiff, Mahant Har Narain Das, is the appellant, raising subsidiary questions on which the Court of appeal had decided against him.

(2.) The main issue in the suit was as to the validity of a deed, dated 26 November 1924, by which the plaintiff purported to make over a valuable estate and other property to the defendant-appellant subject to certain conditions. The object of the suit was to set aside this deed on the ground that it was procured by undue influence and fraud. There are concurrent findings of both the Courts in India that this has been established, and they are undoubtedly findings of pure fact. It is not disputed that if they are to stand the appellant cannot escape the decree which has been passed against him.

(3.) The practice of this Board with regard to concurrent findings of fact is well established. Such findings will not be disturbed unless it is shown that there has been a miscarriage of justice, or the violation of some principle of law or procedure; Moung Tha Hnyeen V/s. Moung Pan Nyo, [1901] 28 Cal 1; Rani Srimati v. Kkajendra Naravan Singh, [1904] 31 Cal 871, per Lord Lindley at p. 131 (of 31 IA); cited and followed in Robins V/s. The National Trust, [1927] AC 515. This does not necessarily imply that their Lordships make the findings their own, for, almost ex hypothesi, they have not considered them in detail; but only that where matters of fact have been fairly tried by two local Courts, which are often in a better position to conclude up on them than this Board, and the same conclusion has been reached by both, it is not in the public interest that the facts should again be examined in the ultimate Court of appeal.