BAIJNATH RAI Vs. GOKUL RAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a plaintiffs appeal arising out of a suit for setting aside three sale- deeds, two of which were executed on the 4 of December, 1901, and the third on the 30 of July, 1913, by the fathers and grandfathers of the present plaintiffs, on the ground that these alienations of ancestral property were without any legal necessity. There was no suggestion in the plaint that the debts had been contracted for any illegal or immoral purposes.

(2.) The defendants transferees contested the claim mainly on the ground that the debts had been incurred for family necessities and were binding on the plaintiffs. It was also pleaded that the claim was barred by time inasmuch as the plaintiffs were not born at the time of the first transfers.

(3.) The court below found that the plaintiff No. 1 was alive at the time when the transfers of 1901 took place and that the two remaining plaintiffs were born before the execution of the third sale-deed. It accordingly held that the plaintiffs were entitled to maintain the suit. It, however, dismissed the suit on the ground that the burden lay on the plaintiffs to prove that the transactions were without any legal necessity and inasmuch as the plaintiffs had failed to discharge that burden, the claim stood dismissed. It relied mainly on two authorities, namely, Gobardhan V/s. Abdul Ghafur Weekly Notes 1887 p. 106 and Sukhdeo Jha V/s. Jhapat Kamat (1920) 54 Indian Cases 946.