BAI KANKU Vs. BAI JADAV

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a suit by a reversioner to redeem a mortgage created by a Hindu widow Bai Bonji.

(2.) The original mortgage was in 1854. It was for the debts of the husband of Bonji. It was renewed in 1857 for the existing debts and certain further debts contracted by this widow. The latter mortgage is that in question in this suit. It contained among other provisions a Gahan Lahan clause that if the money was not paid within a year the mortgagee should become the owner.

(3.) In 1865 a suit was filed by the widow Bonji to redeem the mortgage. It was dismissed by the Munsiff on the ground that the plaintiff had admitted in 1859 in a deposition given in a suit filed by the mortgagee against a tenant that the mortgagee had become owner of the property by the operation of the Gahan Lahan clause. For this reason the Munsiff did not apply to the case the decision in Rarnji v. Ghinto(1864) 1 B.H.C.R. 199, decided in the previous year by the Bombay High Court to the effect that notwithstanding a Gahan Lahan clause the doctrine once a mortgage always a mortgage prevails in this Presidency.