MAHOMED BI BI Vs. NPSULAIMAN AHMED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a suit by the daughter of a deceased Mahomedan for the administration of his estate and for a partition of the properties pertaining to his estate amongst the sharers and heirs under the Mahomedan Law.

(2.) Incidentally a number of difficult and doubtful questions are raised with regard to certain instruments executed by the deceased. For the present purpose the documents which are sought to be set aside as invalid and not binding on the heirs and sharers of the deceased are a registered wakfnama dated the 1 January 1921, and a number of deeds of settlement of property in trust for charities. It would be convenient to deal with the latter at once.

(3.) The deeds are admitted by the plaintiff but it has been argued that, though these deeds were duly executed and registered, they were not acted upon by the deceased and, therefore, they ought not to be recognized or given effect to. Such a plea I construe merely as meaning that these were sham deeds which the executant did not intend to have any legal effect whatsoever. The first thing in such cases would be to see whether there was any sufficient motive on the part of the deceased to take all the trouble and put himself to all the expenses of bringing such documents into existence, if they were indeed intended to be merely shams. The plaintiff sought to make out her plea that these were sham deeds by proving that even subsequent to their execution they were not acted upon by the deceased himself and that he continued even thereafter to regard and deal with the properties as if they were his own. This, however, has not been made out. On the other hand, it has been sufficiently established by the admission made by the first and only witness called for the plaintiff in this case that far from these deeds not being given effect to they were acted upon, that the deceased opened a separate account in respect of all the houses set apart by him for charity under these deeds of settlement and that in that account were credited from time to time the rents that were collected and that debits were also made of various sums in that account expended by the deceased in respect of various charities.