GHUMNA Vs. RAM CHANDRA RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by defendants Nos. 4 and 5 who are transferees pendente lite arising out of a suit brought by the plaintiff as the heirs of one Rama Kant for possession of a house by avoidance of a deed of gift dated the 21 of November, 1921. The plaintiffs claimed that the deed of gift had been obtained by fraud and was also void as being for an immoral and illegal consideration. They further alleged that their father, Moreshwar Rao, who would have been the heir to the deceased Rama Kant, had become a sanyasi and therefore must be treated as civilly dead and the plaintif's were the real heirs. The claim was contested by the transferees and the plaintiffs right to maintain the suit or to challenge the relation was disputed.

(2.) Both the Courts below have given the plaintiffs a decree.

(3.) The facts as found are as follows: Rama Kant, deceased became infatuated with Musammat Prabhawati, defendant No. 2, who is at present undergoing sentence of transportation for life. She and Gobind, defendant No. 1 (who has since been hanged and who was passing as her husband), along with another person entered into a conspiracy to obtain the house by way of gift from Rama Kant and then to murder him. In order to obtain their object, they got a deed of gift executed by him and assured him that Mt. Prabhawati would live with him and in fact they executed a contemporaneous agreement under which it was agreed that they all would live and mess together and no one would be able to dispose of his or her property in the life-time of the other and that after Gobind Rao's death, if the two other persons disagreed or separated they would have certain specific shares in the property and that if any two died, the third would be the complete owner. The deed of gift and the agreement were registered on the 25 of November, 1921, and within a month of their registration, Rama Kant was murdered by the donees. The donees and the other conspirator were put up on their trial and convicted. While the criminal case was pending, the present plaintiffs instituted the suit, and it was during the pendency of the suit that the donees purported to make a gift of this house to the two persons whom the present appellants represent.