SHAMBHU NATH SHIVPURI PLAINTIFF Vs. PUSHKAR NATH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a decree of the High Court at Lahore, dated 15 May 1942, which modified in favour of respondent 1 a decree of the Subordinate Judge of Delhi. The suit was initiated for the partition of the estate of Pandit Basheshwar Nath Shivpuri who had recently died. The appellant is one of his nephews. There were four defendants, and the relationship of the parties one to the other is shown by the table following: Defendant 4, Pran Kishori, was a niece (the daughter of the deceased man's wife's sister). Among the assets left by the deceased were the following: (1) Fixed deposit receipt of the Central Bank of India, Ltd., for Rs. 48,500, in the joint names of the deceased and defendant 1. (2) Ditto for Rs. 7000 in the joint names of the deceased and defendant 2. (3) Five postal cash certificates of Rs. 1000 each, in the joint names of the deceased and defendant 2. (4) Four ditto, in the joint names of the deceased and one Hirdey Nath, elder brother of defendant 1, then deceased. (5) Hundred shares in the Central Bank of India Limited, value Rs. 3130-4-0, in the joint names of the deceased and defendant 1. (6) Fixed deposit receipt of the Punjab National Bank, Ltd., for Rs. 4000, in the joint names of the deceased and defendant 4. (7) Rs. 279-10-6 in the Home Saving Safe Account of the Central Bank of India, Ltd., in the joint names of the deceased and defendant 1. (8) Rs. 450 in cash (spent on funeral expenses). (9) A pucca house No. 1550 -Ward No. 9, in Delhi.

(2.) As appears from this list, certain of the assets were held in joint names and the question which their Lordships have to determine is whether the learned Subordinate Judge was right in saying that these assets were nevertheless the absolute property of the deceased man at the time of his death or whether his object was that they should be so held for the advancement of those whose name was joined with his in the several instances. The first Court held that all the joint holdings stood in the names of the parties to the suit as nominees except that in the name of defendant 4 Pran Kishori. The High Court agreed in the last result but held that all the joint holdings like hers were for the advancement of those whose names were joined with that of the deceased and should be excluded from the partition. The law in India in this matter is not in doubt and is authoritatively stated by their Lordships in 55 IA 2351in the words "the deposit by a Hindu of his money in a bank in the joint names of himself and his wife and on terms that it is payable to either as survivor does not on his death constitute a gift by him to his wife There is a resulting trust in his favour in the absence of proof of a contrary intention, there being in India no presumption of an intended advancement in favour of a wife."

(3.) The rule however is not confined to assets in the joint names of the deceased man and his wife. It is conceded that it is of universal application whatever the property and whatever the relationship. It was common ground therefore before their Lordships that it was for respondent 1 to establish a contrary intention. If he succeeded in doing so he kept the assets standing in the joint names of the deceased and himself. If not, those assets must be included in the partible property. Respondent 1 and Pran Kishori had maintained in the original suit as they did throughout that the property in the cases in which their names were to be found had become theirs, the other members of the family contended that it must all be included in the partition. The question is one of fact and so far as Pran Kishori is concerned has been decided in her favour by concurrent findings in two Courts. No appeal is taken from this part of the decision, but it was strenuously argued that no sufficient evidence had been given to discharge the ordinary rule in the case of respondent 1.