RAMLAL LODHI Vs. R. B. INDRARAJ SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE defendant - applicant, Ramlal, has applied for leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council against the judgment and decree of this Court, dated 1st April 1927, in Ramlal v. Indraraj Singh A.I.R. 1927 Nag. 273.

(2.) THE only question involved in the said judgment was as to whether the gift of mouza Ekodi granted to Harpriabai was one for maintenance only, or was an absolute one. The judgment of this Court affirmed the judgment of the Court below and held that the said grant was merely a maintenance one to Harpriabai and her children. She admittedly had no heirs and, therefore, the village was held to have rightly reverted to the plaintiff-non-applicant. It is not disputed that the value of the subject-matter in dispute both in the Court of first instance and of appeal to His Majesty in Council is above Rs. 10,000. What the defendant-applicant, therefore, has to establish before leave to appeal can be granted, is that a substantial question of law is involved in the case. There has been considerable difference of judicial opinion as1 to the meaning of the term "substantial question of law" in Section 110, Civil PC. One school of opinion has been to the effect that the said phrase implies a substantial question of law of general importance and not merely one of substantial importance as between the parties to the suit : cf. Bishambhar Nath v. Muhammad Ubaid Ullah Khan A.I.R. 1927 P.C. 110. This matter has now been set at rest by the decision of their Lordships of the Privy Council in Raghunath Prasad Singh v. Deputy Commissioner of Partabgarh A.I.R. 1927 P.C. 110. Their Lordships have therein definitely laid down that the term "substantial question of law" merely means such a question as between the parties in the case involved.

(3.) THE oral evidence produced by the defendant and by the plaintiff alike was held by the Bench to be unconvincing. Mr. Bose has urged that the remaining evidence is almost wholly documentary, so that our decision depended upon the right construction of documents. He cites a remark of their Lordships of the Privy Council in Fateh Chand v. Kishan Kimwar [1912] 34 All. 579 at p. 585: The right construction of documents is a question of law which Judges in second appeals are not, by Sections 584 and 584, Civil P.C., precluded from considering by any finding of a lower appellate Court based upon such documents.