BENI PRASAD Vs. LALA PARMA NAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a plaintiff's appeal against a decree passed by the learned Civil Judge of Saharanpur dismissing the plaintiff's suit for a declaration that a certain sale deed was null and void.

(2.) The suit was for a declaration that a sale deed dated 2 May, 1933 executed fey the Court of Wards in favour of defendants 1 and 2 for a consideration of Rs. 27,000 was null and void as against the plaintiff after the deaths of defendants 3 and 4. It was the case for the plaintiff that this sale deed related to the haveli or residential house of Rai Bahadur, Lala Juneshwar Das. The owner died in 1926, leaving surviving him his two widows defendants 3 and 4 who succeeded to his entire estate including the haveli in dispute as Hindu widows. It was the plaintiff's case that the haveli was part of the ancestral property of the deceased Juneshwar Das and this does not appear to have been questioned by the defendants.

(3.) According to the plaintiff the superintendence of the estate of defendants 3 and 4 was assumed by the Court of Wards with effect from 5 January 1928 and that the said estate was subsequently released with the sanction of the Local Government on 20 December 1932 and that it was after the release of the estate by the Court of Wards that the haveli was sold by the latter on 2nd May 1933 as stated previously. The plaintiff alleged that he was the next reversioner of the late Rai Bahadur Lala Juneshwar Das and he claimed in this suit that thesale deed was executed after the estate had been released and in any event the sale was not for legal necessity and was not binding upon the reversionary body.The suit was contested solely by the defendants 1 and 2 who alleged that the sale deed was executed during the superintendence of the estate by the Court of Wards and that it was binding upon the reversionary body who had no ground whatsoever for challenging its validity. They contended that the plaintiff, though the nearest reversioner, had no cause of action whatsoever as it was within the power of the Court of Wards to sell any part of the ward's property during its superintendence and that any exercise of a discretion vested in the Court of Wards could not be (questioned or challenged in a civil Court. They further contended that the validity of this sale did not in any way depend upon whether or not the sale was for legal necessity.