EKRADESHWAR SINGH Vs. MUSAMMAT JANESHWARI BAHUASIN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The suit in which this appeal to His Majesty in Council has arisen was brought on the 20th December 1906, in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Bhagalpur, by Babu Ekradeshwar Singh, who is the appellant here, against Musammat Janeshwari Bahuasin, who is the widow of the plaintiffs younger brother Babu Janeshwar Singh. The plaintiff and his brother were sons of Netreshwar Singh, who was a younger son of Maharaja Rudar Singh of Durbhanga.

(2.) The plaintiff claimed a declaration that he was entitled to the properties in suit which were owned by and in the possession of his deceased brother, a decree for possession of those properties, for mesne profits, and other reliefs. The property claimed consisted of the share which the plaintiff s brother had obtained on a partition between them of immovable property which had been granted by a Babuana grant to their father, of immovable property which had been granted by a Sohag grant to their mother, of immovable property alleged to be accretions to the Babuana property, and of accumulations. The plaintiff s claim was based on an alleged custom in the family of the Durbhanga Raj by which widows and other females were excluded from all rights to the possession of lands held under Babuana grants or Sohag grants. It was alleged by the plaintiff that the properties which had been purchased by his father and by his brother had been purchased with profits which had been derived from the Babuana property and were to be treated as accretions to that property. The defendant, who was in possession, denied the existence of any such custom and by her written statement put the plaintiff to proof of his title to possession.

(3.) The Durbhanga Raj is an ancient and impartible Raj, and by the Kulachar, or family custom, the right of succession to the guddi and to the properties of the Raj Reasat descends according to the rule of lineal primogeniture. The younger sons of a Maharaja of Durbhanga are styled Babus, and by the Kulachar each younger son is entitled by way of a Babuana grant to a portion of the Raj Reasat for the maintenance of himself and his male decendants in the male line, and the wife of a younger son of a Maharaja of Durbhanga gets, by way of a Sohag grant, the usufruct of a portion of the Raj Reasat for the maintenance of herself and her male descendants in the male line. In each case the property, village or villages, granted, continues to form part of the Raj Reasat, from which it is never separated; it is entered in the Government Revenue Registers under the name of the Maharaja for the time being of Durbhanga as the proprietor, and the property so granted reverts to the Maharaja for the time being of Durbhanga on the failure of male descendants in the male line of the grantee. Babuana grants and Sohag grants differ essentially in their nature from absolute grants, and are subject to the Kulachar under which they are authorised and in accordance with which they are made. The family of the Durbhanga Raj are Hindus, and, except in so far as customs of the family and its branches exist and apply, the members of the family are governed by the Mithila School of Hindu law, which, so far as it applies to this case, may be taken as following the Mitakshara of the Benares School.