BHIMAPPA TAMAPPA Vs. KHANAPPA VENKAPPA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application under Section 115 of the Civil P. C. asking for our interference on the ground that the District. Judge of Bijapur has acted without jurisdiction in making order in a summary suit under Section 4 of the Curator's Act XIX of 1841.

(2.) The occasion for the application which was made to the District Judge and upon which the order complained of was passed, was the death in 1907 of Basawa the widow of one Kotrappa who died in 1892. Kotrappa was the representative Vatandar of a Deshgat Vatan in Bijapur territory, and on his death his widow Basawa was entered on the Register as representative Vatandar and she held the Vatan property until her death. On her death an application was made by one Khanappa, who claimed to be the nearest heir of Kotrappa, for possession of the property under the Curator's Act, and that application was granted, It is the order on that application which is now the subject of this proceeding.

(3.) Two points have been raised by the applicant. First, he says that under Section 14 of the Act of 1841, the provisions of the Act could not be put in force because Kotrappa died more than six months before the date of the application. It is, however, admitted that the application was within six months of the death of Basawa, and it is contended on behalf of the opponents that the decease of the proprietor whose property is claimed by right in succession referred to in Section 14, would include the decease of Basawa in the present case, because, Basawa was, between the death of her husband and her own decease, the proprietor of the property which is claimed, and it is claimed in succession to her, that is to say, the claimant claims to succeed her in the possession of the property. This view of the section is we think correct.