DINSHA SORABJI MODY Vs. DINSHA SORABJI MODY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The parties to this suit are interested in the decision of certain questions of law which have arisen in connection with an immoveable property in the village of Ambolee in the suburbs of Bombay. They have entered into an agreement and availed themselves of the provisions of Chapter 38 of the Civil Procedure Code for the purpose of obtaining the opinion of the Court on the questions which have arisen in connection with the said Ambolee property.

(2.) One Nusservanji Jehangir Wadia was the owner of this property. On the 29 of March 1888 he executed an Indenture of settlement whereby he granted and conveyed to certain Trustees the Ambolee property mentioned in the plaint. He reserved to himself the rents and profits of the said property and the management thereof during his own lifetime and then to his wife and on the death of the survivor of them. The Indenture of settlement provides that the Trustees shall hold the said premises "in trust for such person or persons or charity or charities and for such purpose or purposes as the said Nusservanji Jehan-gir Wadia should by deed or writing or by his will or any codicil or codicils appoint". In default of appointment the Indenture provides that the premises should be conveyed to the Trustees of the Parsi Panchayet of Bombay. The plaintiffs are the present Trustees of this Indenture of settlement. Defendants 3 to 7 are the present Trustees of the Parsi Panchayet Funds and properties.

(3.) On the 8 of June 1885 the said Nusservanji Jehangir Wadia executed his last will and testament whereof he appointed his wife Perojbai the sole executrix. By the seventeenth clause of his will the testator gave his residuary estate in the event of his dying without issue to his executrix upon certain trusts mentioned in the said para of his will. He, by the said clause of his will, appointed certain persons trustees for the purpose of carrying out the Charitable Trusts established by the said seventeenth clause of his will and called them his charitable trustees. He gave the residue of his estate to his charitable trustees with directions that they should apply the annual income in or towards the endowment of hospitals for the sick, in donations gifts or grants to dispensaries, infirmaries, eductional or charitable institutions in the Island of Bombay and also in relieving poor and indigent Parsis. The seventeenth cause of the will then goes on to provide that in the event of the charitable trusts being held to be void or incapable of taking effect from any cause whatever and in the event of his wife predeceasing him and his dying without issue the whole of the residue of his estate should go to the Parsi Panchayet.