UMRAO BEGAM Vs. IRSHAD HUSAIN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE original Plaintiff in this suit was Ahmadi Begam, the only surviving widow of Raza Husain, talookdar of Narauli, who died in the year 1885, leaving no son. He had two daughters who survived him: the elder named Sarfaraz, and the younger named Umrao, who is the present Appellant. Sarfaraz married Ahmed Husain, who is one of the Respondents, and at the death of Raza she had a son named Sajjad Husain, then less than five years old. The original Defendants in the suit were Sajjad, Sarfaraz, and Umrao.

(2.) THE talook, being entered in lists 2 and 3 under the Oudh Estates Act, is one of those which descend to a single heir by primogeniture, and which fall under the provisions of Section"'22 of that Act. On Raza's death a claim was preferred on behalf of the child Sajjad, that he was entitled to the talook under sub-Section 4, inasmuch as he had been treated by Raza in all respects as his own son. On that claim Sajjad got possession, and soon afterwards Ahmadi instituted this suit, The title is governed entirely by the question whether Sajjad was treated by Baza as a son. If he was, the talook passed to him and his male lineal descendants by virtue of sub-Section 4. If not, it passed to Ahmadi for her life by virtue of sub-Section 7.

(3.) IT is common ground that Sajjad's mother Sarfaraz was after her marriage taken into Baza's house, and that Sajjad was born there, and from that time till Baza's death he was treated as a child of the house. Evidence was given of a number of incidents, some apparently trivial and some important, for the purpose of showing that Baza's treatment of Sajjad was that of a son. On Ahmadi's side it was contended that all those incidents were sufficiently accounted for by the circumstance that Sarfaraz and her son were inmates of Baza's house, and that Sajjad was his grandson, and in the line of succession. The. case appears to have been very elaborately examined by the Courts below- first by the District Judge of Lucknow, and afterwards by the Judicial Commissioner of Oudh. Both Courts held that Sajjad had been treated as a son by Baza, and that Ahmadi's claim must be dismissed.