ABDUL LATIF KHAN Vs. MT ABADI BEGAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are consolidated appeals from the judgment and decrees of the Chief Court of Oudh on appeals from the judgment and decrees in two suits tried together by Nanavutty, J., sitting in the exercise of the Court's original jurisdiction. Both suits concerned the succession to the estate of Raja Shamsher Bahadur, a talukdar included in list 2 mentioned in S.8, Oudh Estates Act 1 of 1869. He died on 18 April 1883, leaving a will dated 26 March 1883, by which he bequeathed one half of his property to his senior wife, Mt. Aulia Begam and their only surviving child, Jani Begam, and the other half to his junior wife, Mt. Barkatunnissa Begam who was childless, Aulia Begam died in 1897 and Barkatunnissa Begam on 27 April 1927. In the first of these suits, 0. S. No. 5 of 1928, Abdul Latif Khan claimed that the will was invalid, and that as grandson of the Raja's eldest daughter Nawab Begam, who had predeceased him, he was entitled to succeed to the whole of the estate on death of Barkatunuissa, the last surviving widow; or that, if the will was valid, it conferred only life estate on the widows and he was entitled, on Barkatunnissa's death to succeed to her half share of the estate. In the event of the will being held to be invalid, plaintiffs 2 to 5 in this suit alleged that Barkatunnissa was a Shia, and that under the Shia law they were entitled to succeed to her share. It was found by both Courts that she was not a Shia., and this claim therefore failed.

(2.) Defendant 1, hereinafter referred to as the defendant, was Abadi Begam, the elder daughter of Jani Begam. She had obtained a mutation order in her favour and was in possession of the entire immovable property left by Barkatunnissa, and also of a part of the property left by Aulia Begam. The other defendants were transferees from Aulia Begam, with the exception of defendants 4 and 5, Khalil Khan and Fida Ali Khan, who were the heirs of Barkatunnissa under the Hanafi law and of defendant 9 who was a transferee from defendants 4 and 5 and were the plaintiffs in suit No. 8 of 1928.

(3.) In her written statement defendant 1, Abadi Begam, denied that plaintiff 1 was the Raja's heir, either under the Oudh Estates Act or the Raja's sanad, and alleged that the will was invalid or at most had conferred a life estate on Barkatunnissa and that she had succeeded to a life estate under Cl. (8), S. 22, Oudh Estate Act. She alleged that she herself and not the plaintiff was the Raja's rightful heir under the Sunni law to which the Raja and all his family belonged, and that on the death of his widow, Barkatunnissa, she became entitled to succeed to his talukdari estate under Cl. (11), S. 22 of the Act. Defendants 4, 5 and 9 in suit No. 5 were the plaintiffs in suit No. 8. They set up that the will was valid and that Barkatunnissa took an absolute estate under it, and that on her death they as her next heirs under the Sunni law were entitled to succeed to it. Both the lower Courts found that, as regards the bequests to the two widows, the will was valid and conferred on them an absolute estate in their shares. They also found that the plaintiffs in suit No. 8 were Barkatunnissa's heirs, according to the law of the Sunni sect to which the family belonged. The finding that the will conferred absolute estates on the widows also disposed of the claim of the plaintiff in suit No. 5 to recover the properties bequeathed to them, and had the effect of restricting his claim in that suit to the share bequeathed to Jani Begam, the Raja's only surviving daughter.