GOBIND KRISHNA NARAIN Vs. KHUNNI LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This case is a sequel in some respects to the case of the same plaintiffs appellants V/s. Abdul Qayyum decided by this Bench in April 1903, which will be found reported at I.L.R., 25 All., 546. In that case the plaintiffs sued to set aside an alienation made by their mother Rani Mewa Kunwar to her father-in-law under circumstances detailed fully in that judgment. We held in it that the plaintiffs were entitled to succeed. In that case we also detailed at length (pp. 558 et seqq of the report) the conflicting claims made by Rani Chhatar Kunwar and her sister Rani Mewa Kunwar on one side, and Raja Khairati Lal on the other to the estate of Raja Ratan Singh, who after his conversion was known by a Muhammadan name. The judgment then sets forth the compromise (p. 577 of the report) made between the opposing claimants, how the sister's took 8 1/2 annas between them, while Khairati Lal got 7 1/2 annas of the disputed estate. In that suit the villages which the plaintiffs sought to recover were situated within the 8 1/2 annas which the sisters took under the compromise.

(2.) The present suit is for recovery of possession of mauza Mahlpur, a village situate in the 7 1/2 annas which Khairati Lal took under the compromise.

(3.) The ground on which the suit is supported is that the two sisters being only limited owners and as such entitled only to an estate for life had no authority to alienate more than their life estate unless for a purpose recognized as legal and necessary by Hindu law, and that as both are now dead, the compromise is not binding on their reversioners the plaintiffs appellants, who claim, not through their mother Rani Mewa Kunwar, but as next reversioners to their grandfather Daulat Singh, son of Ratan Singh.