CHUNILAL PARVATISHANKAR Vs. BAI SAMRATH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a decree of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay, dated the 20th July 1910, reversing a decree of the Court of the District Judge, Surat, dated the 27th August 1908, which had affirmed with modifications a decree of the Court of the First Class Subordinate Judge, Surat, dated the 4th February 1907.

(2.) The only question for determination in the appeal relates to the construction of a will dated the 20th August 1899, made by a Hindu named Parvatishankar Durgashankar. He was a resident of Surat in the Bombay Presidency; and it may be at once stated that it was admitted by both parties at their Lordships Bar that the Hindu Wills Act, Chapter XX f, of the year 1870, did not apply to this case, which falls to be determined not by the law operative within the territories subject to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal or the local limits of the ordinary original civil jurisdiction of the High Courts at Madras and Bombay. It may well be that the sections of that Act upon interpretation would yield the same result as has been arrived at in the present case. But no decision on that topic is given; and the case is treated as one applying in the mofusil, and therefore to be dealt with on ordinary legal principles. It must also be stated that the various terms employed in the particular will are special, and that no general rule can be said to be precisely applicable in its construction except that the Court must make its best endeavour to extract the intention of the testator.

(3.) Parvatishankar, the testator, died on the 4th July 1901. He left surviving him two sons, Shambhuprasad (who died on the 2nd January 1903, leaving a widow, the respondent in this appeal, and a daughter) and Chunilal, the appallant. A third son of Parvatishankar, Surajlal, had predeceased his father, but had left one son. Surajlal had separated from his father many years previous to his death; the other sons were in family with him.