SRI RAJAH RAVU SRI KRISHNA RAO ALIAS SRI RAJAH RAVU VENKATAKUMARA MAHIPATHI KRISHNA SURYA RAO BAHADUR GARU Vs. RAJA SAHEB MEHARBAN DOSTAN SRI RAJAH RAVU VENKATAKUMARA MAHIPATHI SURYA RAO BAHADUR GARU, SARDAR RAJAHMUNDRY SIRCAR AND RAJAH OF PITTAPUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the decree of the District Judge of Godavari in O.S. No. 34 of 1919 on his file which was a suit brought by the respondent the Maharajah of Pittapuram to have it declared that the adoption of the 2nd defendant by the 1 defendant, the widow of Venkata Rao, her deceased husband, is invalid and not binding on the plaintiff and not affecting his rights in any way. The suit was decreed in plaintiff's favour by the District Judge and hence the appeal to us by the 2nd defendant. The 1 defendant it may be mentioned died pending the appeal and in her place Surya Prakasa Rao has been brought on the record provisionally as the 3 respondent.

(2.) The genealogical table given below shows the relationship of the parties concerned in this litigation and will serve to elucidate some of the questions raised:

(3.) Gangadhara Rama Rao (No. 6 in the pedigree) the old Rajah as he is hereafter called in this judgment, when he was the zemindar carved out the estate of Gollaprolu which is the subject-matter of this litigation from his Pittapur Estate and granted it to his brother Venkata Rao (No. 8 in the pedigree) in lieu of maintenance by deed Ex. O, dated the 8 December 1869 (Ex. 0-I being its counter part). There was some dispute as to the nature of this grant but it was admitted before us by the plaintiff's Vakil that it was an absolute grant. Venkata Rao died in 1871 leaving as his widow the 1 defendant Ramayamma but no issue. The adoption in dispute in the present suit was made by Ramayamma to her deceased husband Venkata Rao on the 15 February 1914 in Madras, the person adopted being Sri Krishna (No. 16 in the pedigree) the fourth son of Ramakrishna (No. 11 in the pedigree) who had himself been adopted by the old Raja in 1873. Sri Krishna was a major at the time of his adoption, a very unusual circumstance as ordinarily minors are adopted and there was his minor brother Murale Krishna available. It is this adoption that plaintiff is seeking to invalidate as one of the nearest reversioners of Venkata Rao being according to him the aurasa son of the old Raja. Defendants while supporting the validity of the adoption denied that plaintiff was a reversioner of Venkata Rao as according to them he was not the son of the old Raja by his wife Mangayamma as alleged but a stranger boy a supposititious child fraudulently put forward as his son by her and they pleaded that he was, therefore, not entitled to dispute the 2nd defendant's adoption.