FAZLHUSSEIN SHARAFALLY Vs. MAHOMEDALLY ABDULALLY SASSOOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a decision of Mr. Justice Blackwell, and it raises interesting questions of law relating to charitable trusts.

(2.) The parties are all Mahomedans of the Shia sect, and on October 29, 1895, Abdulhussein Isubhai a member of that sect executed a deed of trust by which he conveyed certain immovable property to himself and another as trustees. upon trust that the income should be paid to himself for life, and after his death the income was to be divided into five parts. Stated shortly the trusts were to pay the income of one part equal to ten per cent to the settlor's widow for her life, to pay the income of another part equal to thirty per cent. to one of the settlor's daughters for her life and then to her named children for their lives, to deal with another part equal to thirty per cent upon similar trusts for the other daughter and her named children, and subject to these trusts the whole property was given to objects which are admittedly charitable according to Mahomedan law. There was a power to appoint new trustees, which vested after the death of the settlor in his two daughters, and the survivor and after her death in the surviving or continuing trustees, or administrators or executors of the last surviving trustee. The widow and daughters are dead and the only child of a daughter now living is defendant No. 1.

(3.) The property, the subject of the settlement, was entered in the municipal records in the name of the settlor, and no change was made after the execution of the document. But if the document was valid, the presumption that possession follows title would apply, and the possession of the settlor would be treated as that of tenant for life under the settlement, and not as owner claiming against the settlement. The settlor died in 1897, but the property remained standing in his name in the municipal records until 1927.