MT. RUPA Vs. CHAUDHARI BHAIRAON PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) CHAUDHURY Patiram died in 1889 leaving two widows Mt. Kesar and Mt. Rupa, of whom Mfc, Kesar was the senior. The widows quarrelled, and it is admitted that the estate deteriorated very rapidly. In 1894 the Court of Wards assumed superintendence of the estate and borrowed a considerable sum to pay off debts. In 1904 the Court of Wards relinquished the estate. A mortgage-deed was executed in favour of Raja Gokuldas and a lease of the estate was given to the respondent Bhairaon Prasad who is a reversioner. In 1910 the son of Baja Gokuldas sued for foreclosure of this mortgage. Mt. Kesar died soon after the suit was instituted. Mt. Rupa's conduct with regard to this suit was not consistent. At times she contested the suit and at times supported the mortgagee. She presented an application on 12th July 1913 asking that the preliminary foreclosure decree should be made final as the had come to terms with the mortgagee. Again on 5th August 1913, after the Court of Wards had again assumed management in 1913 in order to save the estate, she denied the authority of the Court of Wards to pay the decretal amount and asked that the decree should be passed in terms of the compromise arrived at between her and the decree holder. Some part of the property was sold and the decree of Baja Gokuldas's mortgage was satisfied. The estate remained under the Court of Wards till 4th April 1923 when. Mt. Rupa obtained possession of the estate.

(2.) THE suit out of which this appeal arises-was instituted some eight months later. The plaintiff asked that Mt. Rupa should be deprived of the management of the estate and that the estate should either be made over to him f6r management or that a receiver should be appointed by the Court. The grounds on which he based this prayer were that Mt. Rupa's conduct during the period between her husband's death in 1889 and the relinquishment of the estate by the Court of Wards in 1923 showed that she could not be trusted to deal with the estate in a manner consistent with her limited rights in it. He alleged that she had wasted the property during the period from 1889 to 1894 when she and her co-widow were in joint possession, and that during the period when she was not in actual possession she had been guilty of various acts prejudicial to the estate. The cause of action arose on 4th April 1923 when Mt. Rupa obtained possession of the estate and was placed in a position where she had opportunity to ruin the estate.

(3.) MT . Rupa appeals. The first point urged before us is that the learned Judge has made an improper use of letters which passed between various Government officials. We consider that there is some substance in this argument. Under Section 74, Evidence Act, documents forming records of the acts of public officers are public documents, but they do not furnish proof of all facts to which they refer. Statements in these letters that Mt. Rupa had acted in a particular way are merely the opinions reached in consequence of investigations by the writers of the letters in question. We do not propose to base our judgment on such statements.