RANI MEWA KUWAR Vs. RANI HULAS KUWAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a suit brought by Rani Mewa Kuwar, the granddaughter of Rajah Ruttun Singh, against Rani Hulas Kuwar, the widow of Khyratee Lall, who was a grandson of the Rajah, to recover an 8 1/2 annas share of three houses and an imambara situate in the City of Lucknow. The Appellant claims 4 1/4 annas in her own right, and 4J as the representative of her deceased sister, Chattur Kuwar.

(2.) THE claim arises in this way:--The property in dispute, which is in Oudh, belonged, with other considerable property in Rohilcund, to Rajah Ruttun Singh, who died in 1851. It is said that he became a Mahomedan, and that, according to Hindu Law, his ancestral property thereupon vested in his son, Dowlut Singh, the father of the Appellant and her sister. Dowlut Singh died before his father, and in consequence of his having so pre-deceased him, and having no male issue, the property of the Rajah Ruttun Singh would have descended to the grandson, Khyratee Lall, whose widow, Hulas Kuwar, is the Defendant and present Respondent, unless the conversion of the Rajah and the consequent vesting of the estate in Dowlut Singh was established. The Defendant raised a further question, namely, that the property of Rajah Ruttun Singh had been confiscated by the King of Oudh, and had, after the Rajah's death, been granted by the King as an act of grace to his widow, Rani Raj Kuwar, and that on her death it descended to Khyratee Lall as her legal heir. It appears that questions arising out of this alleged conversion to Mahomedanism of the Rajah, and respecting the confiscation, were contested between the widows of the deceased Ruttun Singh and of his son, Dowlut Singh; and after their deaths the controversies were renewed between Khyratee Lall and the Respondent and her sister. After these controversies, and avowedly to put an end to the disputes, a compromise was effected between the parties, the terms of which are found in what is described as a deed of agreement of the 21st July, I860. It is essential to the determination of the questions in this appeal to consider what is the effect of this agreement and of a subsequent one which was entered into at a later period of the same year, namely, on the 12th of November.

(3.) IT will be observed from what has been already said that their Lordships have felt that this document is ambiguous, and this being so, the construction of it may be aided by looking at the surrounding circumstances. If it had appeared that the Appellant, had had possession for a long number of years of some property which had belonged to Rajah Buttun Singh in Oudh, and the Respondent and those she represents had been in possession of other property which had belonged to the Rajah, it might have been inferred that a partition had been made by agreement, and that the parties were content to hold what they had so agreed to take without any formal partition by a punchait. But upon looking at the circumstances which were relied upon by the Respondent's counsel, Mr. Gave, to support that presumption, it appears to their Lordships that they fail to do so. The first circumstance relied on was that in addition to the four houses which are the present subjects of dispute, there was a fifth house which, it was said, had belonged to Rajah Ruttun Singh, and had been in the possession of the Appellant and her sister and her sister's husband. But the evidence when examined really fails to make out that that house was a part of the property of Rajah Ruttun Singh. On the contrary, there is a great deal of evidence to shew that it was the separately acquired property of Dowlut Singh, the father of the Appellant, and was no part of the estate of the Rajah. The title to that house is, at least, left in doubt, and it was for the Respondent, if she relied upon the circumstance of the Appellant's having the ownership and possession of the house as presumptive proof of the partition, to have shewn clearly that it formed part of the property of the Rajah.