EJAZ AHMAD Vs. SAGHIR BANO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The four appellants were defendants in a suit for partition. The property in which the plaintiffs claim a share belonged to one Hafiz Niaz Ahmad. He left behind several heirs and the plaintiffs claim specified shares against the other heirs of Niaz Ahmad. The defence of the appellants and the other defendants was that the house in question was given to Mt. Wilaiti Begam by Hafiz Niaz Ahmad in lieu of her dower debt and the plaintiffs have no right to the house, and in no case can they have their share apportioned without payment of the proportionate share of the debt. The defendants averred that Mt. Wilaiti Begam's dower was Rs. 40,000 but the plaintiffs say that it was Rs. 1,000.

(2.) In the year 1910 one of the heirs of Niaz Ahmad transferred his share and the transferee instituted a suit for partition of that share. In that case some heirs supported the claim of the transferee but the present plaintiff and the appellants pleaded that Mt. Wilaiti Begam's dower was Rs. 40,000 and that she was in sole possession of her husband's assets in lieu of dower debt. The issue than raised was whether Wilaiti Begam's dower was settled at Rs. 40,000, whether the sharewas still due to her, and whether she was in sole possession of her husband's assets in lieu of the dower debt.

(3.) In the present case the same issue arises and the question that we have to decide in this appeal is whether judgment and the decree that followed the 1910 suit binds the parties with regard to the issue just set out by us.