(1.) The sole question in this appeal is whether the High Court of Judicature for the North- Western Provinces were wrong in holding that the plaintiffs had not proved their case. They reversed the decree of the Subordinate Judge; but as he appears to have failed to deal with the real question, his conclusion need not be pursued. The plaintiff s sought declarations of their right to inherit certain properties in the districts of Amritsar and Saharanpur, which were in the defendants possession. They claimed to be the reversionary heirs of one Tika Nihal Singh, who owned these properties till his death in 1864. The life-interests of his surviving widows did not determine till 1907. The question was one of fact and the burden of proof was on the plaintiffs. Their counsel frankly admitted that their case must rest on certain family pedigrees--the other evidence, which had been put in, being inadmissible or inconclusive.
(2.) There were fifty-nine plaintiffs, and nearly twenty other parties in addition to the persons in possession were joined pro forma, as being members of the family, though they advanced no claims. The case was not one of the joint properties of a Hindu family. If the case were proved, some one person or some few, standing in the same degree of genealogical propinquity, would alone succeed, but the scheme of the action has been to bring into Court a large number of persons, more or less remotely akin in blood, in the hope of ousting the defendants by a mass attack, and afterwards to assign the fruits of victory to the parties entitled by further litigation inter se. Such a plan is inconvenient and is much to be condemned. It is not a mere question of swollen expenses, which might be cured by an order to pay costs thrown away. The Court, as well as the opposite party, is embarrassed and the issues are obscured. The case can be disposed of on other grounds, but their Lordships do not think it right that this objectionable feature of the case should be passed over in silence.
(3.) Among the properties held by this very extensive family there were two, called, respectively, Wuin Puin and Raja Sansi; the former is one of the subjects of the present litigation, the latter is not, In 1865, when Raja Sansi was dealt with under the Revenue Settlement then proceeding in the Punjab, a wajib- ul- arz was drawn up, which in the regular course embodied a shajra, or pedigree, of its proprietors. This was put in by the defendants. About the same time and under similar circumstances a pedigree was no doubt enrolled, when Wuin Puin was dealt with, but this was not forthcoming. It must, however, have been the basis of the pedigree, which was embodied in the wajib-ul-arz, drawn up when Wuin Puin was dealt with in the next Revenue Settlement in 1831, and the official, who produced this pedigree out of the proper custody, deposed that it consisted "of two parts, viz.,(l) the genealogical table prepared in 1865, and (2) the addition made to it after 1865. The genealogical table was prepared for the first time in 1865." This pedigree of 1891 was put in by the plaintiffs. No objection was taken to the admissibility of either pedigree.