THAKUR GAYA BAKHSH SINGH SINCE DECEASED (NOW REPRESENTED BY RANI SURAJ KUNUAR AND ANOTHER) Vs. DEO SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal was brought by Thakur Gaya Bakhsh Singh, who will be referred to herein as "the appellant," though he assigned part of his interest to appellant 2 and has died since the appeal was brought. He was defendant 1 to a suit filed on 16 February 1931, in the Chief Court of Oudh in its original jurisdiction by respondent 1, Deo Singh, a minor (herein called "the respondent"). The plaint claimed a number of properties and impleaded four defendants, but this appeal relates only to three estates and defendant 1 is the only party disputing this claim before the Board. These estates are taluqdari estates in Oudh, and may be considered as one taluqas the main estate goes by the name of Bharawan and is situated in the District of Hardoi: included in it are two smaller estates called Basantpur and Marhapur in the Districts of Lucknow and Unao. The respondent's claim was that he had become entitled to these estates upon the death on 12 December 1930 of a lady called Rani Deo Kuar. The facts out of which his claim arises are not in dispute. In 1859 at the Second Summary Settlement, the estates in question were settled with Raja Mardan Singh. In accordance with requests made to taluqdars by Government that they should make wills specifying the names of their heirs in cases where there was no practice of gaddinashini by custom or sanad, Raja Mardan on 5 March, 1860, executed a document called an ikrarnama, stating :

(2.) I therefore desire and apply that after my death my estate should remain intact and impartible in my family in the name of my eldest son Raja Randhir Singh according to the custom of Raj gaddi and the younger brothers shall be entitled to receive maintenance from the holder of the gaddi. In compliance with these wishes, the sanad granted to him in a common form (of. Sykes Compendium, p. 386) on 24 November 1862, conferred "the full proprietary right, title and possession" on him and his heirs for ever subject to conditions as to payment of revenue and the observance of certain rules of good behaviour towards Government. It provided also:

(3.) It is another condition of this grant that in the event of your dying intestate or of any of your successors dying intestate the estate shall descend to the nearest male heir, according to the rule of primogeniture, but you and all your successors shall have full power to alienate the estate either in whole or in part by sale, mortgage, gift, bequest or adoption to whomsoever you please. Raja Mardan Singh died in 1863 and was succeeded by his eldest son Raja Randhir Singh. The terms of the sanad were sufficient of themselves to vest the estate in Randhir on the death of his father, but the law applicable at that time to Hindus in Oudh imposed no formal requirements as to wills and it is the case both of appellant and respondent that Randhir could also claim to have succeeded under the ikrarnams as a will. In 1869 when Act I (the Oudh Estates Act) was passed in the lists prepared under S. 8 thereof the three estates now in question were entered in list I and the name of Raja Mardan Singh (though dead) was entered in lists 1, 2 and 5. In 1839 Randhir died without male issue and was succeeded by his brother Raja Madho Singh. On the death of Madho without issue on 23 October 1906, he was succeeded by his widow Rani Deo Kuar. It is upon her death in 1930 that the respondent claims to have become entitled to the estate. In 1906 the respondent's father Mahipal Singh was alive, but he predeceased Rani Deo Kuar. The pedigree incorporated herewith shows the respondent's descent from Ragunath Singh, brother of Raja Mardan Singh, and that he is in the senior male line is not now contested.