RAM PRASAD SINGH Vs. BABU LAL SONAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a defendant's appeal arising out of a suit for recovery of possession by means of redemption of a mortgage, dated the 10 of January, 1912, executed by one Mt. Bhagwanti. The plaintiff claimed to be the nearest reversioner of Mt. Bhagwanti's son Ram Nandan. The property in dispute is a fixed rate tenancy which would devolve as land. Both the Courts below have decreed the claim. I am not now concerned in appeal with the question as to how much of the mortgage money was for legal necessity.

(2.) The main point which has been urged In the course of argument by the learned Vakil for the appellants is that the lower Appellate Court has conceded that Mt. Bhagwanti was the step-mother of Ram Nandan. His argument, therefore, is that she was not the legal heir under the Hindu Law of the estate of Ram Nandan and the estate in her hands was not a Hindu widow's estate. It is, therefore, urged that the mortgage made by her was made by a trespasser and the plaintiff cannot succeed as an heir to the estate after her death, nor can he succeed unless he comes within 12 years of the date of the death of Ram Nandan himself.

(3.) The abstract point of law which has bean urged before me oertainly has great force. According to the ruling reported In Ramanand V/s. Surgiani (1894) 16 All. 221 under the Mitakshara School of Hindu Law a stepmother not being one of the females expressly named in the Mitakshara and not being included under the term "mother" in Chapter II, Section 3, cannot inherit from her deceased step-son. This ease has so far not been dissented from in this Court. On the other hand its principle has been accepted in the case of Nanhi V/s. Gauri Shanhar(1905) 28 All. 187. The Madras High Court where the Mitakshara law prevails has also held in the case of Seethai V/s. Nachiar (1914) 37 Mad. 286 that a step-mother cannot inherit an estate of her step son.