BIJOY GOPAL MUKERJI Vs. GIRINDANATH MUKERJI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The substantial question in this appeal is the validity of an Ijara executed on the 7th September 1863, for a term of sixty years, by a Hindoo widow named Sayamoni Debi, under circumstances which it will be necessary to refer to in some detail.

(2.) Sayamoni Debi was the widow of Chandra Bhusan Mukerji. Her husband died in 1832 without leaving any issue, making her his sole heiress. The property consisted chiefly of landed property of considerable value.

(3.) Sayamoni was a Purdanasheen lady and probably not very capable of managing a large estate. She appears to have been dispossessed of the property by one of her husband s relatives, Baman Das Mukerji, and was compelled, in 1844, to bring a suit against him and his two brothers, Gouri Pershad and Annoda Pershad, to recover it. This litigation lasted till 1858, when, on appeal to Her Majesty in Council, the rights of Sayamoni to the estate of her husband were finally established. But although this was the case, it is evident that she did not thereupon obtain possession of the property. Further difficulties were raised and much of the property was threatened with the growth of adverse rights in the actual possessors of the land, who refused to pay rent under the pretext that the title had not been settled, and seeing that, prior to 1858, adverse possession against a widow ranked as adverse possession against the reversioners, there can be no doubt that the whole estate was in very serious peril.