Ram Gopal Vs. Nand Lal & Ors
[1950] INSC 31 (14 November 1950)
MUKHERJEA, B.K.
FAZAL ALI, SAIYID AIYAR, N. CHANDRASEKHARA
CITATION: 1951 AIR 139 1950 SCR 766
CITATOR INFO :
R 1952 SC 145 (7) R 1954 SC 355 (15) F 1963
SC1703 (7,8) R 1972 SC1279 (10) R 1976 SC 794 (8)
ACT:
Hindu Law--Gift to female
owner--Construction--'Gift for maintenance--Estate conveyed, whether absolute
or limited--Use of the word 'Malik', effect of.
HEADNOTE:
In construing a document whether in English
or in vernacular the fundamental rule is to ascertain the intention from the
words used; the surrounding circumstances are to be considered but that is only
for the purpose of finding out the intended meaning of the words which have
actually been employed.
To convey an absolute estate to a Hindu
female, no express power of alienation need be given; it is enough if words of
such amplitude are used as would convey full rights of ownership.
The term 'Malik' when used in a will or other
document as descriptive of the position which a devisee or donee is intended to
held, has been held apt to describe in owner possessed of full proprietary
rights, including a full right of alienation, unless there is something in the
context or in the surrounding circumstances to indicate that such full proprietary
rights were not intended be conferred to 767 The mere fact that a gift of
property is made for the support and maintenance of a female relation could not
be taken to be a prima facie indication of the intention of the donor, that the
donee was to enjoy the property only during her life-time. The extent of
interest, which the donee is to take, depends upon the intention of the donor
as expressed by the language used, and if the dispositive words employed in the
document are clear and unambiguous and import absolute ownership, the purpose
of the grant would not, by itself, restrict or cut down the interest. The
desire to provide maintenance or residence of the donee would only show the
motive which prompted the donor to make the gift, but it could not be read as a
measure of the extent of the gift.
Where a Hindu died leaving two widows, a
widowed daughterin-law and a daughter's son, and a relative of the family
acting as guardian of the daughter's son's son who was then the nearest
reversioner got a relinquishment deed from the daughter-in-law renouncing all
her claims to the estate and in return executed a deed of 'tamlikhama' to her
with respect to certain properties which ran as follows:
"I have therefore, of my own accord and
free will, without any compulsion or coercion on the part of any one else while
in my proper senses made a Tamlik of a doublestoried pucca built shop .........
and a house and a kothri in Etawah ......... worth Rs. 8,000 for purposes of
residence of the Musammat (the daughter-in-law) owned by the minor aforesaid
......... which present stands let out on out on rent to Sunder Lal, brother of
Mst. Meria aforesaid ......... in favour of Mst. Meria aforesaid, widow of
Chhedi Lal and made her the owner (Malik) "' Held, that there was nothing
in the context of the document or in the surrounding circumstances which would
displace the presumption of full proprietory rights which the use of the words
'Malik' is apt ordinarily to convey and the daughter-in-law obtained under the
gift deed a full heritable and transferable title to t, he properties conveyed
thereby.
Rajendra Prasad v. Gopal Prasad (57 I.A.
296), Kollani Koer v. Luchmee Parsad (94 W.R. 395), Tagore v. Tagore (I.A.
Supp. Sasiman Chaudhurain v. Shib Narayan (49
I.A. 25), Biswanath Prasad v. Chandrika (60 I.A. 56) relied on.
Baja Ram Baksh v. Arjun (60 I.A. 56),
Woodayaditta Deb v. W.R. 229) distinguished.
APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. LIX
of 1949.
Appeal from the judgment of the Allahabad High Court (Verma and Yorke JJ.) dated 6th September, 1943 in First Appeal No. 3 of 1940.
P.L. Banerjee (B. Banerjee, with him), for
the appellant.
768 S.P. Sinha (N.C. Sen, with him), for the
respondents.
1950. November 14. The court delivered
judgment as follows :-MUKHERJEA J.--This appeal is directed against an appellate
judgment of a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court dated September 6, 1943, by which the learned Judges reversed a decision of the Civil Judge, Etawah,
made in Original Suit No. 28 of 1936.
The suit was one commenced by the plaintiff,
who is respondent No. 1 in this appeal, for recovery of possession of two items
of immovable property--one, a residential house and other, a shop--both of
which are situated in the town of Etawah. The properties admittedly formed part
of the estate of one Mangal Sen who died sometime towards the end of the last
century, leaving behind him, as his heirs, his two widows, Mst. Mithani and
Mst. Rani. Mangal Sen had a son named Chhedi Lal and a daughter named Janki
Kuar born of his wife Mst. Rani, but both of them died during his lifetime.
Chhedi Lal had no issue and he was survived by his widow Mst. Meria,while Janki
left a son named Thakur Prasad. Janki's husband married another wife and by her
got a son named Babu Ram. On Mangal Sen's death, his properties devolved upon
his two widows, and Mst. Rani having died subsequently, Mst. Mithani came to
hold the entire estate of her husband in the restricted rights of a Hindu widow.
On 27th November 1919, Mst. Mithani surrendered the whole estate of her husband
by a deed of gift in favour of Thakur Prasad who was the nearest reversioner at
that time. Thakur Prasad died in 1921, leaving a minor son named Nand Lal who
succeeded to his properties and this Nand Lal is the plaintiff in the suit out
of which this appeal arises. On 27th October 1921, there was a transaction
entered into between Babu Ram on his own behalf as well as guardian of infant
Nand Lal on the One hand and Mst. Meria, the widow of Chhedi Lal, on 769 the
other, by which two items of property which are the subject-matter of the
present litigation were conveyed to Meria by a deed of transfer which has been
described as a Tamliknama; and she on her part executed a deed of relinquishment
renouncing her claims to every portion of the estate left by Mangal Sen. It is
not disputed that Meria took possession of the properties on the basis of the
Tamliknama and on 10th April 1923 she executed a will, by which these properties
were bequeathed to her three nephews, who are the sons of her brother Sunder
Lal. Meria died on 19th June 1924. One Ram Dayal had obtained a money decree
against Sunder Lal and his three sons, and in execution of that decree the
properties in suit were attached and put up to sale and they were purchased by
Ram Dayal himself on 30th January 1934. On 1st June 1936, the present suit was
instituted by Nand Lal and he prayed for recovery of possession of these two
items of property on the allegation that as they were given to Mst. Meria for
her maintenance and residence, she could enjoy the same only so long as she
lived and after her death, they reverted to the plaintiff. Sunder Lal, the
brother of Meria, was made the first defendant in the suit, and his three sons
figured as defendants Nos. 2 to 4. Defendant No. 5 is a lady named Chimman
Kunwar in whose favour Sunder Lal was alleged to have executed a deed of
transfer in respect of a portion of the disputed property. Ram Dayal, the
decree-holder auction purchaser, died in May 1935 and his properties vested in
his daughter's son Ram Gopal under a deed of gift executed by him in favour of
the latter. On 1st September 1938, Ram Gopal was added as a party defendant to
the suit on the plaintiff's application and he is defendant No. 6. The two
other defendants, namely, defendants 7 and 8, who were also made parties at the
same time, are respectively the widow and an alleged adopted son of Ram Dayal.
The suit was contested primarily by defendant
No. 6, and the substantial contentions raised by him in his written statement
were of a two-fold character.
770 The first and the main contention was
that Mst. Meria got an absolute title to the disputed properties on the
strength of the 'Tamliknama' executed in her favour by the guardian of the
plaintiff and after her death, the properties passed on to the three sons of
Sunder Lal who were the legatees under her will. Ram Dayal, it was said, having
purchased these properties execution of a money decree against Sunder Lal and
his three sons acquired a valid title to them. The other contention raised was
that the suit was barred by limitation. The trial Judge decided both these
points in favour of the contesting defendant and dismissed the plaintiff's
suit. On appeal to the High Court, the judgment of the Civil Judge was set
aside and the plaintiff's suit was decreed.
The defendant No. 6 has now come up on appeal
to this court and Mr. Peary Lal Banerjee, who appeared in support of the
appeal, pressed before us both the points upon which the decision of the High
Court has been adverse to his client.
The first point raised by Mr. Banerjee turns
upon the construction to be placed upon the document executed by Babu Ram on
his own behalf as well as on behalf of Nand Lal then an infant, by which the
properties in dispute were transferred to Mst. Meria by way of a 'Tamliknama'.
The question is whether the transferee got, under it, an absolute interest in
the properties, which was heritable and alien able or was it the interest of a
life tenant merely. The documentis by no means a complicated one. It begins by
a recital of the events under which Nand Lal became the sole owner of the
properties left by Mangal Sen and refers in this connection to the obligation
on the part of both Babu Ram and Nand Lal to "support, maintain and
console" Mst. Meria, the widow of the pre-deceased son of Mangal Sen. The
document then proceeds to state as follows:
"I have therefore, of my own accord and
free will without any compulsion or coercion on the part of any one else while
in my proper senses made a Tamlik of a double-storied pucca built shop ......
and a house 771 and a kothri in Etawah ......... worth Rs. 8,000 for purposes
of residence of the Musammat, owned by the minor aforesaid ...... which at
present stands let out on rent to Sunder Lal, brother of Mst. Meria aforesaid
......... in favour of Mst. Meria aforesaid, widow of Chhedi Lal and made her
the owner (Malik). If any portion or the whole of the property made a Tamlik of
for the purpose mentioned above passes out of the possession of the Musammat
aforesaid on account of the claim of Nand Lal minor aforesaid, I and my
property of every sort shall be responsible and liable for the same." This
document has got to be read along with the deed of relinquishment, which is a
contemporaneous document executed by Meria renouncing all her claims to the
property left by Mangal Sen. The deed of relinquishment like the Tamliknama
recites elaborately, with reference to previous events, particularly to the
deed of gift executed by Mst.
Mithani in favour of Thakur Prasad, the
gradual devolution of the entire estate of Mangal Sen upon Nand Lal. It states
thereafter that Babu Ram, as the guardian of the minor and also in his own
right, "has under a Tamliknama dated this day made a 'Tamlik'. in my
favour of a shop alongwith a Balakhana and a kota for my maintenance and a
house .......
for purpose of my residence which are quite
sufficient for my maintenance." "I have therefore, of my own accord
", the document goes on to say, "made a relinquishment of the entire
property aforesaid mentioned in the deed of gift ......worth Rs. 25,000. I do
covenant and do give in writing that I have and shall have no claim to or
concern with the property ......... belonging to the minor aforesaid, nor has
the property aforesaid remained subject to my maintenance allowance nor shall I
bring any claim at any time." The schedule to the instrument, it may be
noted, gives a list of all the properties of Mangal Sen in respect to which
Mst. Mithani executed a deed of gift in favour of Thakur Prasad, including the
two items of property covered by the'Tamliknama' mentioned aforesaid.
772 In construing a document whether in
English or in vernacular the fundamental rule is to ascertain the intention
from the words used; the surrounding circumstances are to be considered, but
that is only for the purpose of finding out the intended meaning of the words
which have actually been employed(1). In the present case the instrument of grant
has been described as a 'Tamliknama' which means a document by which ' Maliki '
or ownership rights are transferred and the document expressly says that the
grantee has been made a' Malik' or owner. There are no express words making the
gift heritable and transferable; nor on the other hand, is there any statement
that the transferee would enjoy the properties only during her life-time and
that they would revert to the grantor after her death.
It may be taken to be quite settled that
there is no warrant for the proposition of law that when a grant of an
immovable property is made to a Hindu female, she does not get an absolute or
alienable interest in such property, unless such power is expressly conferred
upon her. The reasoning adopted by Mr. Justice Mitter of the Calcutta High
Court in Kollani Koer v. Luchmee Parsad(2) which was approved of and accepted
by the Judicial Committee in a number of decisions, seems to me to be
unassailable. It was held by the Privy Council as early as in the case of Tagore
v.
Tagore('3) that if an estate were given to a
man without express words of inheritance, it would, in the absence of a
conflicting context, carry, by Hindu Law, an estate of inheritance. This is the
general principle of law which is recognised and embodied in section 8 of the
Transfer of Property Act and unless it is shown that under Hindu Law a gift to
a female means a limited gift or carries with it the restrictions or
disabilities similar to those that exist in a 'widow's estate', there is no
justification for departing from this principle. There is certainly no such
provision in Hindu Law and no text could be supplied in support of the same.
(1) Vide Rajgndra Prasad v. Gopal Prasad. 57
I.A. 296.
(2) 24 W.R. 395. (3) L.R.I.A. Supp. 47 at 65.
773 The position, therefore, is that to
convey an absolute estate to a Hindu female, no express power of alienation
need be given; it is enough if words are used of such amplitude as would convey
full rights of ownership.
Mr. Banerjee naturally lays stress upon the
description of the document as 'Tamliknama' and the use of the word ' Malik' or
owner in reference to the interest which it purports to convey to the
transferee. The word' Malik' is of very common use in many parts of India and
it cannot certainly be regarded as a technical term of conveyancing. In the
language of the Privy Council, the term 'Malik' when used in a will or other
document "as descriptive of the position which a devisee or donee is
intended to hold, has been held apt to describe an owner possessed of full proprietory
rights, including a full right of alienation, unless there is something in the
context or in the surrounding circumstances to indicate that such full
proprietory rights were not intended to be conferred(1).'' This I think to be a
perfectly correct statement of law and I only desire to add that it should be
taken with the caution which the Judicial Committee uttered in course of the
same observation that "the meaning of every word in an Indian document
must always depend upon the setting in which it is placed, the subject to which
it is related and the locality of the grantor from which it receives its true
shade of meaning." The question before us, therefore, narrows down to this
as to whether in the present case there is anything in the context of these two
connected instruments or in the surrounding circumstances to cut down the full
proprietory rights that the word 'Malik' ordinarily imports.
The High Court in reaching its decision
adverse to the appellant laid great stress on the fact that the grant was
expressed to be for maintenance and residence of Mst. Meria.
This, it is said, would prima facie indicate
that the grant was to enure for the lifetime of the grantee. It is pointed out
by the learned (1) Vide Sasiman Chowdhurain v. Shib Narayan, 49 I.A, 25.
99 774 Judges that the language of the
document does not show that anybody else besides the lady herself was to be
benefited by the grant and the indemnity given by Babu Ram was also given to
the lady personally. It is further said that if Meria was given an absolute
estate in the properties comprised in the 'Tamliknama', there was no necessity
for including these two properties again in the deed of relinquishment which
she executed at the same time.
I do not think that the mere fact that the
gift of property is made for the support and maintenance of a female relation
could be taken to be a prima facie indication of the intention of the donor,
that the donee was to enjoy the property only during her life-time. The extent
of interest, which the donee is to take, depends upon the intention of the
donor as expressed by the language use, d, and if the dispositive words
employed in the document are clear and unambiguous and import absolute
ownership, the purpose of the grant would not, by itself, restrict or cut down
the interest. The desire to provide maintenance or residence of the donee would
only show the motive which prompted the donor to make the gift, but it could
not be read as a measure of the extent of the gift. This was laid down in clear
terms by the Judicial Committee in a comparatively recent case which is to be
found reported in Bishunath Prasad v.
Chandrika(1). There a Hindu executed a
registered deed of gift of certain properties in favour of his daughter-in-law
for the" support and maintenance" of his daughter-in-law and declared
that the donee should remain absolute owner of the property (malik mustaqil)
and pay Government revenue.
There were no words in the document expressly
making the interest heritable or conferring on the donee the power of making
alienation. It was held by the Judicial Committee that the donee took under the
document, an absolute estate with powers to make alienation giving title valid
after her death. In course of the judgment, Lord Blanesburgh quoted, with
approval, an earlier decision of the (1) 60 I.A 56 775 Judicial Committee,
where the words "for your maintenance" occurring in a deed of gift
were held insufficient to cut down to life interest the estate taken by the
donees. These words, it was said, "are quite capable of signifying that
the gift was made for the purpose of enabling them to live in comfort and do
not necessarily mean that it was to be limited to a bare right of
maintenance." On behalf of the respondent, reliance was placed upon the
decision of the Judicial Committee in Raja Ram Buksh v.
Arjun(1)in support of the contention that in
a maintenance grant it is the prima facie intention of the gift that it should
be for life. In my opinion, the decision cited is no authority for the general
proposition as is contended for by the learned Counsel for the respondent, and
it is to be read in the context of the actual facts of the case which relate to
grants of a particular type with special features of its own. It was a case
where a Talukdar made a grant of certain villages to a junior member of the
joint family for maintenance of the latter. The family was governed by the law
of primegeniture and the estate descended to a single heir. In such cases the
usual custom is that the junior members of the family, who can get no share in
the property, are entitled to provisions by way of maintenance for which assignments
of lands are generally made in their favour. The extent of interest taken by
the grantee in the assigned lands depends entirely upon the circumstances of
the particular case, or rather upon the usage that prevails in the particular
family. In the case before the Privy Council there was actually no deed of
transfer. It was an oral assignment made by the Talukdar, and the nature of the
grant had to be determined upon the recitals of a petition for mutation of
names made to the Revenue Department by the grantor after the verbal assignment
was made and from other facts and circumstances of the case. The case of
Woodoyaditta Deb v. Mukoond(2), which was referred to and relied upon in the
judgment of the Privy Council, was (1) 28 I.A, 1. (2) 22 w.R. 229.
776 also a case of maintenance or khor phos
grant made in favour of a junior member of the family, where theestate was impartible
and descended under the rules of primogeniture. It was held in that case that
such grants, the object of which was to make suitable provisions for the
immediate members of the family, were by their very nature and also under the
custom of the land resumable by the zemindar on the death of the grantee, as
otherwise the whole zemindary would be swallowed up by continual demands. This
principle bas obviously no application to cases of the type which we have
before us and it was never so applied by the Privy Council, as would appear
from the decision referred to above.
The learned Counsel for the plaintiff
respondent drew our attention in this connection, to the fact that the
properties given by the ,Tamliknama' were valued at Rs. 8,000, whereas the
entire estate left by Mangal Sen was worth Rs. 25,000 only. It is argued that
the transfer of nearly one-third of the entire estate in absolute right to one
who was entitled to maintenance merely, is, on the face of it, against probability
and common sense. I do not think that, on the facts of this case, any weight
could be attached to this argument. In the first place, it is to be noted that
whatever might have been the actual market value of the properties, what the
widow got under the Tamliknama was a residential house and a shop, and the shop
was the only property which fetched any income. This shop, it appears, was all
along in possession of Sunder Lal, the brother of Meria, and the rent, which he
paid or promised to pay in respect of the same, was only Rs. 12 a month. So
from the income of this property it was hardly possible for Meria to have even
abate maintenance, and this would rather support the inference that the
properties were given to her absolutely and not for enjoyment merely, so long
as she lived.
But what is more important is, that the
object of creating these two documents, as the surrounding circumstances show,
was not merely to make provision 777 for the maintenance of Mst. Meria; the
other and the more important object was to perfect the title of Nand Lal to the
estate left by Mangal Sen and to quiet all disputes that freight arise in
respect of the same. It may be that Mst.
Meria could not, in law, claim any. thing
more than a right to be maintained out of the estate of her deceased
father-in-law. But it is clear that whatever her legal rights might have been,
Nand Lal's own position as the sole owner of the properties left by Mangal Sen
was not altogether undisputed or free from any hostile attack. As has been said
already, Sunder Lal, the brother of Meria, was in occupation of the
double-storied shop from long before the Tamliknama was executed and Meria got
any legal title to it.
It appears from the record that in 1920 a
suit was instituted on behalf of the infant Nand Lal for evicting Sunder Lal
from the shop and the allegation in the plaint was that Sunder Lal was
occupying the property as a tenant since the time of Mst. Mithani by taking a
settlement from her. Sunder Lal in his written statement filed in that suit
expressly repudiated the allegation of tenancy and also the title of Nand Lal
and openly asserted that it was Mst. Meria who was the actual owner of Mangal
Sen's estate. The suit ended in a compromise arrived at through the medium of
arbitrators and the result was that although Sunder Lal admitted the title of
the plaintiff, the latter had to abandon the claims which were made in the
plaint for rents, costs and damages. Sunder Lal continued to be in occupation
of the shop and executed a rent agreement in respect of the same in favour of
Nand Lal promising to pay a rent of Rs. 12 per month. A few months later, the
Tamliknama was executed and this shop along with the residential house were
given to Meria in maliki right.
The recitals in both the Tamliknama and the
deed of relinquishment clearly indicate that the supreme anxiety on the part of
Babu Ram, who was trying his best to safeguard the interests of the minor, was
to put an end to all further disputes that might be raised by or on behalf of
Mst. Meria with regard to the rights of Nand Lal to the properties 778 of
Mangal Sen and to make his title to the same absolutely impeccable. That seems
to be the reason why Meria was given a comparatively large portion of the
properties left by Mangal Sen which would enable her to live in comfort and her
interest was not limited to a bare right of maintenance. It is significant to
note that the shop room, which was all along in possession of Sunder Lal, was
included in this Tamliknama and soon after the grant was made, Sunder Lal
executed a rent agreement in respect of the shop in favour of Mst. Meria
acknowledging her to be the owner of the property.
It is true that the document does not make
any reference to the heirs of Meria, but that is not at all necessary, nor is
it essential that any express power of alienation should be given. The word
"Malik" is too common an expression in this part of the country and
its meaning and implications were fairly well settled by judicial
pronouncements long before the document was executed. If really the grantee was
intended to have only a life interest in the properties, there was no lack of
appropriate words, perfectly well known in the locality, to express such intention.
The High Court seems to have been influenced
to some extent by the fact that in the Tamliknama there was a guarantee given
by Babu Ram to Meria herself and to no one else agreeing to compensate her in
case she was dispossessed from the properties at the instance of Nand Lal. This
covenant in the document was in the nature of a personal guarantee given by
Babu Ram to Mst. Meria for the simple reason that the property belonged to an
infant and it was as guardian of the minor that Babu Ram was purporting to act.
It was too much to expect that Babu Ram would
bind himself for all time to come and give a guarantee to the future heirs of
Meria as well. Probably no such thing was contemplated by the parties and no
such undertaking was insisted upon by the other side. But whatever the reason might
be which led to the covenant being expressed in this particular form, I do not
think that it has even a remote bearing on the 779 question that arises for our
consideration in the present case. It is of no assistance to the plaintiff in
support of the construction that is sought to be put upon the , document on his
behalf.
I am also not at all impressed by the other
fact referred to in the judgment of the High Court that if the properties were
given to Meria in absolute right, there was no necessity for including them
again in the schedule to the deed of relinquishment which Meria executed. I
fail to see how the inclusion of the properties in the deed of relinquishment
would go to indicate that Meria's rights to these properties were of a restricted
and not an absolute character. It is after all a pure matter of conveyancing
and the two documents have to be read together as parts of one and the same'
transaction. Under the ' Tamliknama ', Meria got two properties in absolute
right out of the estate of Mangal Sen. By the deed of relinquishment, she
renounced her claim for maintenance in respect of all the properties left by
Mangal Sen including the two items which she got under the 'Tamliknama'. After
the ' Tamliknama' was executed in her favour, there Was no further question of
her claiming any right of maintenance in respect of these two items of
property. She became the absolute owner thereof in exchange of her rights of
maintenance over the entire estate and this right of maintenance she gave up by
the deed of relinquishment. On a construction of the entire document, my conclusion
is that there is nothing in the context of the document, or in the surrounding
circumstances which would displace the presumption of full proprietory rights
which the use of the word "Malik" is apt ordinarily to convey. The
first contention of the appellant, therefore, succeeds and in view of my
decision on this point, the second question does not arise for determination at
all.
The result is that the appeal is allowed, the
judgment and decree of the High Court are set aside and those of the trial
Judge restored. The defendant No. 6 will have his costs from the plaintiff in
all the courts. There will be no order for costs as regards the other parties:
780 FAZL ALI J.--I agree with the judgment
delivered by my learned brother, Mukherjea J.
CHANDRASEKHARA AIYAR J.--During the hearing
of the appeal I entertained doubts whether the view taken by the High Court was
not correct. But on further consideration, I find that it cannot be maintained,
having regard to the terms of the ' Tamliknama' (deed of transfer) in favour of
Musammat Meria and the context in which it came into existence. The name of the
document or deed does not very much matter. Though the word ' malik ' is not a
term of art, it has been held in quite a large number of cases, decided mostly
by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, that the word, as employed in
Indian documents, means absolute owner and that unless the context indicated a
different meaning, its use would be sufficient to convey a full title even
without the addition of the words, ' heirs ', or ' son ', ' grandson ' and '
great grandson'. Of course, if there are other clauses in the document which
control the import of the word and restrict the estate to a limited one, we
must give the narrower meaning; otherwise the word must receive its full
significance. Especially is this so, when the rule of interpretation laid down
in Mohammed Shamsul v. Sewak Ram(') has come to be regarded as unsound.
The language employed in the ' Tamliknama'
(Ex. II) is almost similar to the language of the deeds construed in Bhaidas
Shivdas v. Bai Gulab & Another('2) and Bishunath Prasad Singh v. Chandika
Prasad Kumari and Others(s) where it was held that an absolute estate was
conveyed. I agree that the judgment and decree of the High Court should be set
aside and that the decree of the trial Judge should be restored with costs to
the appellant in all the Courts.
Appeal allowed.
Agent for the appellant: R.K.Kuba.
Agent for the respondents: S.P. Varma.
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