BALKISAN DEVCHAND Vs. KUNJALAL HIRALAL AGARWALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The dispute in this case arises as to the ownership of certain lands in the East Khandesh District, within the Presidency of Bombay, and it depends upon determining whether or no a deed that was executed on 11th August 1911 by a widow and her adopted son was or was not valid. The suit to determine the dispute was brought by the reversioners, who would have been entitled had the deed been void, and it was brought against the purchasers, who are the present appellants.

(2.) The validity of the deed is challenged upon two distinct grounds. It is first of all alleged that the adopted son, who, with the Hindu widow, formed the vendors, had never been properly adopted, and secondly that there was no necessity that would have justified the sale by the widow alone.

(3.) The first point arises in this way. The property was, as stated, within the Presidency of Bombay, and within that Presidency it would be possible to establish adoption without proving that the widow had express authority for that purpose ; but that would not be the case within the School of Benares, whose law was applicable in the District of Delhi, from which it is said that the ancestors of the husband of the widow originally came. In this case it is only the existence of the power and not the performance of the ceremony that is questioned and it is therefore, only essential to see whether or not that statement was established. The evidence upon it is undoubtedly slight; but there is some evidence which, in their Lordships' opinion, is sufficient to show that that was the origin of the family. There is the definite statement that the old customs prevailing on the Delhi side were still good among the family, and, in their Lordships' opinion, that can only be properly referable to the fact that those customs had been introduced into their present place from Delhi, whence they had originally sprung.