BHAGESHWARI SINGH Vs. HINGU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the plaintiff in a suit for ejectment of the defendants from a house situate in Kachhwa Bazar, taluqa Majhwa, district Mirzapur.

(2.) The plaintiff alleged that one Sondat was the last male holder of his property. He died, leaving a widow, Mt. Punia, a daughter, Mt. Tulshi, and three grandsons, namely, Sat Narayan, Manhgu and Ram Narayan. The property vested in Mt. Punia with the limited estate of a Hindu widow. She executed a deed of gift in favour of one of her grandsons, Sat Narayan. Sat Narayan, in conjunction with two of his brothers, executed a sale deed of the house in favour of the plaintiff appellant on 16 March 1923. Mt. Punia died six or seven years before the suit. About two years before the institution of the suit, the plaintiff's vendors are alleged to have let out the house to the defendants as their tenants. The usual notice was served on the defendants to vacate the house. They refused to vacate it. Hence the suit.

(3.) The suit was resisted upon various grounds but with many of the pleas put forward by the defendants we are not concerned in this appeal. The principal pleas upon which the case went to trial is the one contained in para. 2 of the additional pleas: Sondat and the answering defendants, who are his own nephews, belong to one family, as it will appear from the pedigree given below. During their lifetime, Sondat and the father of the answering defendants, together with the answering defendants, lived as members of a joint Hindu family, and all affairs and property were joint. Accordingly, after the death of Sondat, Balgovind, father of these defendants, became the owner and possessor of the ancestral property in dispute as the surviving member of the joint Hindu family. After the death of Balgovind, these defendants entered into proprietary possession and occupation of the property in the same way and are still in possession.