GANESH LAL Vs. KHETRAMOHAN MAHAPTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Their lordships are relieved of the neceesity of narrating at length the facts of this complicated litigation, as the judgment under appeal summarises very clearly the history of the transactions in debate.

(2.) This is an ex parte appeal from the judgment and decree of the High Court of Patna which partly affirmed and partly reversed the Order of the Court of first instance.

(3.) A Hindu lady of the name of Suryamani, who died in 1904 or 1905, conveyed by mortgage and sale to one Behari Lal Pandit, the father of defendant No. 1, almost the whole of the property which had devolved on her as the widow of one Banamali Mahapatra, a native of Orissa, subject to the Mita-kshara law. Banamali appears to have died in the year 1863, leaving him surviving his widow, Suryamani, and two daughters, one of whom died not long after, childless ; the other Satyabhama, survived her mother, and was the original plaintiff in the present suit, which was instituted in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Cuttack on September 17, 1916. iSatyabhama challenged in the action the validity of the transactions entered into between Suryamani and Behari Lal Pandit in respect of the properties conveyed to him by the widow. On Satyabhama's death her sons, the present respondents, were substituted in her place.