SHANKAR BAJI JOSHI Vs. KASHINATH GANESH PURANIK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) After hearing arguments on both sides in this case, we have come to the conclusion that the question referred to the Full Bench should be answered in the negative.

(2.) I shall state my reasons for this conclusion briefly. So far as this Court is concerned this very question was considered very fully in Vithalrao V/s. Ramrao. (1900) I.L.R. 24 Bom. 317 s.c. 2 Bom. L.R. 139 Jenkins C.J. and Ranade J., who decided the case, came to the conclusion that the opinion expressed by Westropp C.J. in the earlier decision of Samat V/s. Amra (1882) I.L.R. 6 Bom. 394 should be accepted, and that the preference of the whole blood over the half-blood should be confined to the brothers and their sons as expressly mentioned by Vijnaneshvara in the Mitakshara and by Nilakantha in the Vyavahara Mayukha and could not be extended to the case of uncles and more distant gotraja sapindas. They had before them the view taken by the Full Bench of the Allahabad High Court with reference to a similar point in Suba Singh V/s. Sarafraz Kunwar. (1890) I.L.R. 19 All, 215, F.B. The learned Judges differed from the view taken by the Full Bench of the Allahabad High Court, and came to the conclusion that the distinction between the whole blood and half-blood was confined to brothers and their sons, and did not extend to uncles and more distant gotraja sapindas.

(3.) Since then their Lordships of the Privy Council have hold in Ganga Sahai V/s. Kesri (1915) L.R. 42 I.A. 177 s.c. 17 Bom. L.R. 998 which went up to the Privy Council by way of appeal from the High Court of Allahabad, that "Under the Mitakshara law a paternal uncle of the half- blood is entitled to inherit in preference) to the son of a paternal uncle of the whole blood." Their Lordships observed in the judgment that "the preference given to the whole blood over the half-blood is confined to sapindas of the same degrees of descent from the common ancestor."