RADHA MADHAB JIU THAKUR Vs. RAJENDRA PRASAD BOSE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are two appeals under the Letters Patent against the decision of his Lordship the Chief Justice, arising out of an application under Order 21, Rule 100, Civil P.C., and of a suit instituted by the respondents against the appellants for certain declarations. There was a third suit instituted by the present appellants against the respondents, which was dismissed by this Court and against which dismissal an appeal under the Letters Patent has already been dismissed. Both the suits and the application under Order 21, Rule 100, Civil P.C., were filed in the Court of the Subordinate Judge at Cuttack. They were removed from the Court of the Subordinate Judge to this Court and were heard in its extraordinary original jurisdiction under Clause 9, Letters Patent, of this Court. A point was taken by the appellants that the order of removal of the cases from the Court of the Subordinate Judge to this Court was illegal inasmuch as the reasons for so doing we re not recorded on the proceedings of this Court, as required by Clause 9, Letters Patent. It is true that the reasons were not recorded; but the mere non- recording of the reasons does not in any way affect the jurisdiction of this Court and does not make its decision illegal. It is only an irregularity which does not affect the jurisdiction. Learned Counsel for the appellants conceded this point and did not press it further.

(2.) The facts are shortly these: One Golok Prasad had a son Ram Prasad Bose by his first wife, and he had four sons by his second wife. Ram Prasad Bose married one Ahladini alias Gangamani, and he died on 16 February 1869. Before his death he had executed a document called anumati patra giving authority to his wife to adopt a son. The document provided that his wife should adopt his father's youngest son who was then called Chema, but that if there was any obstacle to take him in adoption according to the Shastras then that boy would be made a sneha-putra, or she may adopt anyone else whom she wants "with the permission of my father," the vernacular word used for the words "with the permission of" being "matanusare."

(3.) After the death of Ram Prasad his widow Ahladini adopted one Krishna Prasad on 23 November 1884. Krishna Prasad died in 1909 leaving an infant son Gopal Prasad who was born in 1908. The widow Ahladini died in September 1920. On her death a suit was instituted by the surviving sons of Golok Prasad by his second wife, in the years 1921 for recovery of the entire estate of Ram Prasad as the next reversionary heirs, and for a declaration that the adoption of Krishna Prasad by the widow was invalid for want of authority, and also that in fact no adoption was made. The suit of the reversioners was dismissed by the Subordinate Judge and the High Court on appeal affirmed the decree of the Subordinate Judge.