SRI RAJAH KRISHNAYYA RAO Vs. RAJAH OF PITTAPUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal was before the Board in June, 1933, when a preliminary point was considered as to the admissibility of certain evidence which had been rejected by the Indian Courts. As the result of that hearing an order of His Majesty in Council was promulgated by which the evidence in question was declared to be admissible, and the case was remanded to the High Court for fresh findings upon certain of the issues to which the evidence related. It now comes back to the Board, with the findings of the High Court, for final disposal of the appeal.

(2.) The relevant facts are set out at length in the judgment delivered by Lord Russell of Killowen on June 30, 1933 [Krishnayya Rao V/s. Raja of Pittapur (1933) L.R. 60 I.A. 366 and it is only necessary now to summarise them very briefly.

(3.) The suit out of which the appeal arises was brought by the respondent praying for a declaration that the adoption of appellant No. 1 by defendant No. 1, since deceased, and now represented by appellant No. 2, was invalid. The adoption involved the right of succession to the Gollaprolu estate which had formed part of the Pittapur Raj, an important zemindary of the Madras Presidency. This estate had been granted in 1869 by the then Raja of Pittapur, Gangadhara Rama Rao (hereinafter, as in the former judgment, referred to as the late Raja) to his -brother Venkata Rao, who died childless some two years later, and at the time of the disputed adoption was in the possession of his surviving widow defendant No. 1. She adopted appellant No. 1 on February 15, 1914.