BAL GANGADHAR TILAK Vs. SHRI SHRINIWAS PANDIT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a decree of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay, dated 23rd September 1910, which reversed the decree of the First Class Subordinate Judge at Poona, dated 31st July 1906.

(2.) The main question to be determined on the appeal has reference to the validity of the adoption by the widow of the late Shri Vasudeo Harihar Pandit, alias Shri Baba Maharaj, of a son to her late husband. The appellant Jagannath claims to be the duly adopted son. This claim is resisted by the defendants and forms the issue in the case.

(3.) The adoption is challenged substantially upon three grounds first, that it was never completed in fact. This in argument was reduced to the proposition that the whole transaction had been left at the stage of a proposal to be afterwards carried into effect. As to the adoption itself, it is maintained that there was never a complete giving and taking of the child, and in, particular he was not taken upon the lap of the adoptive mother. Secondly, that the religious ceremony of datta homam, namely, the sacrificial burning of the clarified butter in accordance with the practice of the Hindu religion, was an essential requisite, and was not performed, and that on this ground also the adoption remained inchoate.