RAM SARUP Vs. MUSSUMAT BELA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE appeals are presented by the heirs of Luchmi Narain in two suits instituted by him for the purpose of enforcing certain judgments obtained by him against the Defendant Hearsey, and making them available against property, partly in Bareilly and partly in Badaun, which formerly belonged to Hearsey.

(2.) IN the first suit the plaint states that Hearsey was the owner of the property in question at the time when he gave a bond to Luchmi Narain dated the 3rd of February, 1873. It then states that Hearsey, in 1870, filed a petition in the Settlement Department alleging that the Defendant, who is generally called Vilayati Begum, his second wife, and her three children had been put in possession in equal shares, on condition of the wife obeying her husband and the children remaining faithful to their religion, and that a mutation of names might take place. Then it prays relief against all the Defendants; it seeks to have the property sold to the entire displacement of the Begum, and to the displacement of the children excepting as regards their interest for life.

(3.) ON the first question, as to the transfer, several witnesses have been examined, and they all tell substantially the same story. The story is this : That early in 1870 Hearsey convened a large meeting of his neighbours and acquaintances (forty or fifty are said to have been present), that at that meeting he stated that he had been very ill, that he felt the precariousness of life, that he desired to avoid disputes among the branches of his family (for besides the Begum he had other wives so called, and other children), and that on that account he intended to give, and did thereby give to the Begum and her children, who were very young at that time, his property in the zillahs of Bareilly and Badaun. He said that the servants were to consider themselves not his servants but hers, and that he was to be no longer the owner of the property. And a formal ceremony took place, consisting of a gift of some rupees to the Begum by the mokuddams of the villages in question, no doubt symbolical of her assuming the ownership of the villages.