UMAN PARSHAD Vs. GANDHARP SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this case only one question was argued, and that was whether the two transfers executed by Gulab in the years 1863 and 1864 to Bissesur, the husband of her only daughter, were real transfers, or benami. That question turned out to be a complicated one, and it was necessary to go into a good deal of evidence of a varied and rather voluminous nature. The Plaintiff maintains that the substance of the transaction is the same as the form of it, and that the property, consisting of four villages, conveyed to him by deeds duly attested, registered immediately afterwards and subsequently proved and filed in a suit, was actually sold to him. As to the deeds there was no doubt. The only question is whether Bissesur the grantee was a benamidar.

(2.) IT is familiar to us all that the system of putting property benami is so extremely common in India that the mere fact of a deed being executed in proper form, and apparently effecting a valid transfer to another, is not as good evidence of a real transfer as it would be in other countries, and even a slight quantity of evidence to shew that it was a sham transaction will suffice for the purpose. Still, such a transfer cannot be considered as nothing. The person who impugns its apparent character must shew something or other to establish that it is a benami or sham transaction.

(3.) THEN their Lordships ask what is the direct evidence on the point, oral evidence given by witnesses who profess to speak to it. There are two witnesses called for the Defendant - Hira Singh, and Sitaram - who say that the transaction was a sham one, and that Gulab remained in possession, apparently they mean to say during the rest of her life. But they give no details; they speak to no acts of possession, even as to the time of possession their language is quite vague and general; and they tell, both of them, the most extraordinary story with respect to these deeds, namely, that when Balbhadar, the person against whom it was suggested that these deeds were to be a defence, appeared upon the scene, Gulab immediately told Balbhadar that the deeds were all sham deeds. Their Lordships have no hesitation in treating the evidence of those witnesses as worthless.