LAL BAHADUR Vs. AMBIKA PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) TWO only of the question? which in this case were dealt with by the trial Judge remain, for consideration by their Lordships, and the facts which raise or surround them can be shortly stated.

(2.) THE respondents are members of a joint Hindu family governed by the Mitakshara law. Ram Die, their grandfather, and his brother Pateshwari, were in 1895 the managers of the joint family property, and on the 6th August in that year they executed in favour of one Chota Lal, a predecessor-in-interest of the present appellants, two mortgages : the first, a simple mortgage of a portion of the ancestral family property to secure and advance of Rs. 2,000 and interest; the second, a usufructuary mortgage for Rs. 8,000 upon another portion of the family property, namely, a 4-anna share in the village of Tendwa Takya.

(3.) ON the 12dh September 1904 Pateshwari Din and Ram Din carried out the transaction which it is sought in this suit to impeach, that is to say, a sale by registered deed of the 4-anna share in the village of Tendwa Takya, already the subject of the usufruotuary mortgage in favour of Chote Lal and in his possession as such mortgagee. The purchasers under the deed are by name Ragho, Bindra and Asharfi Lal. It would appear however, that they were one, or some or all of them, nominees of Chote Lal, whose interest in the purchase was throughout his life dominant. The sale is expressed to be a sale to the purchasers of the property in suit for Rs. 14,000 free from encumbrances. Of the purchase money Rs. 2,105-3-9 are in the deed stated to have been paid to the vendors on its execution; while Rs. 11,894-12-3 are stated to have been left with the purchasers for the purpose of making the payments, of which the following is a compendious statement: