Case: Gopal Singh And Others Vs. Ujagar Singh And Others

The plaintiffs appeal. They claim to be the presumptive reversioners to one Harnam Singh who owned the property in dispute. On 2nd November, 1944, after Harnam Singhs death, his daughter Mst. Biro, the second defendant, gifted the plaint properties to her sons who have been grouped together as the first defendant. The plaintiffs contend that the property is ancestral and that the daughter got only a life estate, so they sue for a declaration that the gift will not affect their reversionarydefendants rely on custom. They state that, according to the customary law which governs the parties, collaterals beyond the fifth degree are not heirs in the presence of a daughter and her line. The plaintiffs, they say, are collaterals of the seventh degree, therefore they cannot displace the daughter. They also state that the property was not ancestral and so the plaintiffs cannot challenge the daughters alienation. The third line of defence related to a portion of the property which is not in dispute beforeproperty in suit consisted of three items253 bighas of Khas land;(2) a half share in 3 bighas 19 biswas; and(3) a share in certain shamlatdefendants say that Harnam Singh gifted 123 bighas of the Khas land to the second defendant : that the gift was absolute and so the plaintiffs cannot get that portion of the property in any event.The trial Judge held, on the admission of the plaintiffs counsel, that the land in dispute was non-ancestral and that the daughters sons would succeed after her to the exclusion of the plaintiffs, therefore the gift by her to her sons amounted to an acceleration of the estate. The learned Judge dismissed the plaintiffs suit.On appeal to the lower appellate Court, the finding that the property was non-ancestral was upheld as the plaintiffs learned counsel in that Court did not contest the finding of the first Court on this point. As regards the acceleration, the learned Judge though it necessary to examine a point which the plaintiffs had raised in the trial Court but which was ignored there, namely that a house was not included in the gift. Therefore it was argued that as the whole of the estate was not passed on to the next heir there was no acceleration. The learned Judge took evidence on this point and held that the house was not included and so found against the defendants. Accordingly he decreed the plaintiffs claim for this part of the estate.In the High Court the learned Judges upheld the concurrent finding about the non-ancestral nature of the property. Before them also the point was conceded by the plaintiffs counsel. They also held that the house was not included in the gift but held that it was such a small part of the estate that the daughters retention of it could not indicate an intention on her part not to efface herself from the estate. They also held in the plaintiffs favour that they were collaterals in the fifth degree and not the seventh but held that as the property was non-ancestral the daughters sons were the nearest heirs, so the gift accelerated the estate and vested it in the donees despite the exclusion of the house. Accordingly, they reversed the decree of the lower appellate Court and restored that of the learned trial Judge.

Reasoning:
We were not shown how the facts admitted could be disentangled from the law so that we could determine whether the conclusion of law drawn from the admitted facts wasfindings are obviously res judicata and if the plaintiffs learned counsel had not conceded the point the question would at once have been raised and the previous judgments, which were exhibited (Exhibits DD and DF) would have concluded the matter. But as the point was conceded in all three Courts it was not necessary for the defendants to fall back on the previous decisions. It must therefore be accepted here that the whole of the land in dispute waswere told that this rule only applies when the daughter succeeds and has no application when she predeceases her father. We say nothing about this because the case before us is one in which the daughter did succeed and all the authorities produced before us indicate that in that event her sons will exclude the collaterals. We were not shown any decision which has taken a contrary view. We are only concerned with non-ancestral property here and express no opinion about what would happen in the case of ancestral property, though the observations of two the learned Judges in the Full Bench of the Punjab Chief Court to which we have referred carry the rule over to ancestral property aswe are not concerned with an alienation here. The gift to the sons may or may not be good after Mst. Biros death as apresent case is, in our opinion, covered by that rule. We agree with the High Court that the gift operated to accelerate the succession. That being the case, the plaintiffs are no longer the reversioners even if they would otherwise have been entitled to succeed on failure of the daughters sons and their line. We need not decide whether the plaintiffs, as collaterals in the fifth degree, would be heirs at all.