SULTAN BEGUM Vs. NAWAB QAMAR ARA BEGUM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a decree of the Chief Court of Oudh, dated 6 November 1929, which varied a decree of the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Lucknow, dated 23 May 1928. The respondent instituted the present suit on 29 March 1928, for partition of the estate left by Nawab Abida Begum, a Shia Mahomedan lady, who died on 25 September 1924, aged about 80 years, and leaving three step-sisters as her heirs. The respondent is the grand daughter of one of the three sisters, since deceased, and she claims one third of the estate left by Abida Begum The appellants are defendants in the suit. Appellant No. 1 is the purchaser of the right, title and interest of the two other sisters of Abida Begum in her estate, and, as such, is entitled to two- thirds thereof. The remaining appellants are the husband and children of appellant No. 1. The appellants hold several properties which are claimed by the respondent to belong to the estate of Abida Begum. Abida Begum was twice married but had no children. Her first husband died in 1889, and she inherited part of his wasika, or government pension, which brought her Rs. 293-10-2 per month.

(2.) On her mother's death in 1894, this pension was increased to Rs. 542-14 per month, and in 1910 it was again increased to about Rs. 800 per month, which she drew up to her death. In 1898, under the compromise of a decree that she had obtained for her dower and her one-fourth share of her first husband's estate, she received Government Promissory Notes for Rs. 26,000 and Rs. 5,247 cash, in addition to certain moveables which she had taken, in part satisfaction of her decree. About 1894 Abida Begum married Abid Husain Khan, by a muta marriage, as her second husband. He was also a Shia Mahomedan and a widower, having two daughters, Fatima Begum and Sultan Begum (appellant No. 1), then aged about six and four years respectively. Abid Husain had been the salaried medical attendant of Abida Begum's first husband. Abid Husain died on 22 November, 1910, leaving as his heirs his two daughters, his mother Jafri Begum, and his widow Abida Begum. It may be added that in 1902 appellant 1 had been married to appellant 2, who was the grandson of Abida's only brother who had predeceased her, and that appellants 1 and 2 continued to live in the family with Abida Begum until the latter's death.

(3.) As regards Abida Begum, there can be no doubt that she remained a capable woman up to the date of her death, that she allowed Abid Husain to manage all her affairs from after her first husband's death until his own death, and that she had a devoted affection for both appellants 1 and 2 and 3 for their children. The learned Judges of the Chief Court state : "We do not believe that she was of commanding intellect or of great business capacity, but the evidence shows to us that she was a lady of an intellect as high as the intellect of most ladies of her birth and of her upbringing and that she preserved her faculties to a somewhat surprising extent to the date of her death .... The conclusions which we draw from the facts here are that Nawab Abida Begum was at the time of her husband's death of intellectual capacity greater than that possessed by most of the ladies of a similar position to her own, that she was very devout, spending her time largely on religious observances, that she had certain literary tastes which were connected with her religion (her poems were religious) and that she, a childless woman, lavished her affection upon the daughters of Abid Husain. She further showed kindness to other members of his family, having Jafri Begum, her husband's mother, to live with her and on the evidence treating his other relations with great consideration. She appears to have been a woman singularly disinclined to extravagance. She seems to have lived well within her income. We shall discuss later what became of her savings. She clearly was not a woman who vested her money. On the other hand, she husbanded her resources. She lived modestly in a house which had not cost a great deal of money and was apparently happy in the exercise of her religious duties and in the society of her favourite Sultan, Sultan's husband and Sultan's children."