MT JASODA KUER Vs. PUNIT SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal under the Letters Patent against a decision of a single Judge of this Court who, agreeing with the Subordinate Judge, decreed the plaintiff's suit for a declaration of his title to certain property. There were three brothers: Punit, Pryag and Behari. The property admittedly belonged to these three brothers who jointly inherited it on the death of their father. Punit is the plaintiff in this suit and his case is that his brothers Pryag and Behari died in a state of jointness and therefore he took the whole of the property by right of survivorship. Defendant 1 is the widow of Pryag and defendant 2 is his daughter. Defendant 3 is the widow of Behari.

(2.) It appears that the plaintiff Punit has executed some sort of deed devising all his property to his daughter's son who is defendant 4 in the suit, and defendant 1 has made a gift to her daughter, defendant 2. The defence of defendant 2, who was the contesting defendants in the suit, was that the brothers were separate and that on the death of Pryag and Behari their widows inherited their shares in the property. The trial Court found in favour of the defendants and dismissed the suit. On appeal the learned Subordinate Judge found that the brothers were joint and he gave a decree to the plaintiff. On second appeal to this Court the decision of the Subordinate Judge has been affirmed.

(3.) The question no doubt was whether the three brothers were joint or separate which would ordinarily be a question of fact, but the point of law raised is that certain documents relied upon by the defendants as evidence of partition were illegally excluded from evidence on the ground that they were not admissible. The first document is Ex. 1 which is said to be an award by certain arbitrators dividing the property between the three brothers. This document bears the signatures of the three brothers and the question was whether this document was to be treated as an award or as a deed of partition. The Courts below have treated it as a deed of partition on the ground that it bears the signature of the three brothers over and above the signatures of the persons who are said to have effected the partition and acted as punchas.