MAROTI SURYABHAN Vs. RAIWANT RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiffs are the appellants in this case. They base their title on a sale-deed executed on 11th January 1915 by one Bablaji, the husband of Mt. Jani, defendant 6, who was then a minor. The plaintiffs' case is that they were put in possession of the property purchased by them in November 1919, but were unlawfully dispossessed by the defendants in July 1920. Hence this suit was instituted on 28th, June 1924 for recovery of possession of the property from the defendants. Plaint is silent as to how the property became the property of Mt. Jani.

(2.) DEFENDANT 1 contended that the property in suit was originally the property of Ganpat who died in 1911, leaving widow Mt. Soni, mother Gopi and sister Jani. On his death his widow Soni inherited it; that as she was alive and Jani had only a contingent reversionary interest at the date of sale there could be no transfer in view of Section 6, T.P. Act, in plaintiffs favour; and that plaintiffs acquired no title under the sale-deed. Defendants 1 and 2 purchased one-fourth share of the field in suit from Ganpat's widow Soni and she gifted an other one-fourth share to Maroti's temple, defendant 4, the same day and the remaining half-share was sold by her to defendant 3 on 14th April 1919; and that ever since their purchase defendants 1 to 4 bad been in peaceful and uninterrupted possession of their respective shares. On 17th April 1924, defendant 1 sold 8 acres of the land purchased by him and his brother, defendant 2, to Jani, defendant 6, and that ever since she had been in possession thereof, defendant 5 had purchased one-eighth share in the field in suit under a sale-deed dated 11th February 1915 from, defendant 1.

(3.) AS regards the question of oral will of Bali ram being in favour of Ganpat or Gopi the Courts below have come to the conclusion that Baliram willed away the fields in suit to Ganpat and not to Gopi. It may here be mentioned that Gopi admittedly died in 1913 when Soni, the widow of Ganpat, had not remarried. If the alleged will in favour of Gopi had been proved then Gopi would have been fresh stock of descent and her daughter Jani would have succeeded on her death in 1913 to the field as her stridhan. But in view of the finding that Baliram's oral will was in favour of Ganpat and that he died in 1911, Ganpat was the last male owner and as such succession had to be traced to him, and, Jani being only his sister his widow Soni had a more preferential claim to the property which devolved on her in preference to Ganpat's mother Gopi or sister Jani; Soni thus continued to be the owner of the property so long as she had not either sold it away or got herself remarried. As Ganpat's mother died before Soni's re-marriage, succession could open out in favour of Jani in case she chanced to be alive at Soni's civil death which she brought about in 1919. So the position is clear that at no time prior to 1919, much less on 11th January 1915, when her guardian sold the property on her behalf, Jani had any transferable interest in the property in suit.