NAGENDRABALA DEBI Vs. KASHIPATI CHOWDHRY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case a preliminary point has been taken as to whether the High Court has jurisdiction under the provisions of the Probate and Administration Act to grant probate, unless a portion of the assets are situate within the limits of the Original Jurisdiction of this Court.

(2.) The sections of the Probate and Administration Act that are material are, first, Section 2, which provides that "no Court in any local area beyond the limits of the town of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay, etc., and no High Court, in exercise of the concurrent jurisdiction over such local area hereby conferred, shall receive applications for probate or letters of administration until the Local Government has, with the previous sanction of the Governor- General in Council, by a notification in the Official Gazette, authorized it so to do." The notification referred to has been published in the Calcutta Gazette in 1881, by which this Court (that is the High Court of Calcutta) has jurisdiction to receive applications for probate and letters of administration throughout the territories subject to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal.

(3.) The next section necessary to call attention to is Section 51. Section 51 defines the jurisdiction of a District Judge for granting probate, and the terms of that section are extremely general: and it says that "the District Judge shall have jurisdiction in granting and revoking probates and letters of administration in all cases within his district." Apparently nothing is said here as to what the cases within his district are meant to be. Then Section 56 defines the cases where probate and letters of administration may be granted by the District Judge, and the cases are where the testator had at the time of his death a fixed place of abode or any moveable or immoveable property within the jurisdiction of the Judge.