Case: Kalishanker Das And Another Vs. Dhirendra Nath Patra And Others

2. The appellants before us are the heirs and legal representatives of the original defendant No. 3 in the suit, which was commenced by the plaintiffs respondents to recover possession of the property in dispute, on establishment of their title, as reversionary heirs of one Haripada Patra, after the death of his mother Rashmoni, who got the property in the restricted rights of a Hindu female heir on Haripadas death to appreciate the contentions that have been raised by the parties to this appeal it would be necessary to narrate the material facts in chronological order.3. The property in suit which in premises No. 6 Dwarika Ghoses Lane situated in the suburb of Calcutta admittedly formed part of the estate of one Mahendra Narayan Patra, a Hindu inhabitant of Bengal, owning considerable properties, who died on the 17th April 1903 leaving him surviving his widow Rashmoni, two infant sons by her, Mohini Mohan and Haripada and a grandson Ram Narayan by a predeceased son Shyama Charan. Shyama Charan was the son of Mahendra by his first wife, who died during his lifethe 17th February 1901 Mahendra executed a will by which he made certain religious and charitable dispositions and subject to them, directed his properties to be divided amongst his infant sons Mohini and Haripada and his grandson Ram Narayan. Ram Narayan was appointed executor under thethe death of Mahendra, Ram Narayan applied for probate of the will and probate was obtained by him on the 6th October,Ram Narayan entered upon the management of the estate. He developed extravagant and immoral habits and son ran into debts. The bulk of the properties was mortgaged to one Kironsashi who having obtained a decree on the mortgage applied for sale of the mortgaged properties.Thereupon Rashmoni on behalf on her infant sons instituted a suit against the mortgagee and the mortgagor and got a declaration that the mortgage decree could not bind infants shares in the properties left by their father. This judgment was given on the 31st March 1909.On the 13th August 1909 the two infant sons of Mahendra to wit Mohini and Haripada, by their mother and next friend Rashmoni, instituted a suit in the court of the Subordinate Judge at Alipore, being Title Suit No. 45 of 1909, claiming administration of the estate left by Mahendra as well as partition and accounts on the basis of the will left by him.On the 14th of August 1909 one Baroda Kanta Sarkar, Sheristadar of the court of the District Judge, Alipore was appointed with the consent of both parties, receiver of the estate forming the subject-matter of the litigation. The receiver took possession of the properties immediately after this order was made. The management by the receiver, as it appears, was not at all proper or beneficial to the interest of the two sons of Mahendra. Mahendra himself left no debts and whatever debts were contracted, were contracted by Ram Narayan to meet his own immoral and extravagant expenses. The receiver however went on borrowing large sums of money upon ex parte orders received from the court, the ostensible object of which was to pay off the debts due by Ram Narayan which were not at all binding on the plaintiffs. Fearing that the longer the suit continued and the properties remained in the hands of the receiver the more harmful it would be to the interests of the minors. Rashmoni on behalf of the minors compromised the suit with Ram Narayan and a Solenama was filed on the 13th June 1910.The terms of the compromise, in substance, were, that the properties in suit were to be held in divided shares between the three parties and specific allotments were made in favour of each, the properties allotted to the share of Haripada being specified in schedules Gha and Chha attached to the compromise petition. It was further provided that the receiver would be discharged on submitting his final accounts. It may be mentioned here that the property which is the subject matter of the present suit was, under the Solenama , allotted to the share of Haripada.On the very day that the compromise was filed, Rashmoni applied for discharge of the receiver. The court made an order directing the receiver to submit his final accounts within one month, or as early as possible, when the necessary order for discharge would be made. It was further directed that as the suit was disposed of on compromise the receiver should discontinue collecting rents and profits due to the estate from that day. This order however was modified by a subsequent order made on 23rd June 1910, which directed that the receiver was to continue in possession of the estate until he was paid whatever was due to him for his ordinary commission and allowance and until the parties deposited in court the amounts borrowed by the receiver under order of the court or in the alternative gave sufficient indemnity for the same.After this, Rashmoni on behalf of her minor sons filed two successive applications before the Subordinate Judges praying for permission to raise by mortgage, of a part of the estate, the money necessary for releasing the estate from the hands of the receiver. The first application was rejected and the second was granted, after it was brought to the notice of the Subordinate Judge that the receiver was attempting to dissuade prospective lenders who were approached on behalf of Rashmoni, to lend any money to her.On the 16th of January 1911 Haripada, the younger son of Rashmoni, died and his interest developed upon his mother as his heir under the Hindu Law. On the 18th January 1911 the following order was recorded by the Subordinatereceiver has filed a statement showing the amount as due to him up to the end of the current month. This claim amounts to Rs. 20,950-2-6 pies only. The parties may deposit the sum on or before the 1st February next in court and such deposit the receiver will be discharged and the possession of the estate of late Mahendra Narayan Patra will be made over to thethe very same day Mohini executed a mortgage (Ex. M-1) in favour of one Suhasini Dasi by which he hypothecated the properties allotted to his share and also his future interest as reversioner to the share of Haripada, to secure an advance of Rs. 30,000. The loan was to carry interest at the rate of 18 per cent, per annum. One thing may be mentioned in connection with this mortgage, and that is, that amongst the properties included in the mortgage were two properties, namely, premises No. 15/1 and 16 Chetlahat Road, which had already been sold and to which the mortgagor had no title at the date of the mortgage.On the 1st February 1911 Mohini deposited in court the sum of Rs. 20,950-2-6 pies, being the amount alleged to be due to the receiver and the court by an order passed on the date directed the release of the estate from the hands of the receiver.After the estate was released a petition was filed on behalf of the plaintiffs on the 15th February 1911 praying that the loans said to be contracted by the receiver should not be paid out of the money deposited in court, as these borrowings were made not for the protection of the estate but only for the personal benefit of the defendant Ram Narayan and to pay off his creditors. It was contended that the loans raised by the receiver were not raised in good faith, after proper notice to the plaintiffs but on the strength of order which he obtained ex parte from the Subordinate Judge without disclosing the material facts. This application was rejected by the court on the 23rd February 1911.After this order was made, the plaintiffs put in a petition praying that payment of the moneys, due to the creditor with the exception of what was necessary to pay off one of the creditors, named Rakhal Das Adhya, be stayed till the following Monday as the plaintiffs wanted to move the High Court against the order of the Subordinate Judge mentioned above. The court granted this prayer and on the 2nd of March following, orders received from the High Court directing that the moneys were to be detained in court pending further orders. The High Court made order on the plaintiffs petition on the 29th may 1911. The learned Judges were very critical of the appointment of the Sheristadar of the court as receiver of the estate and in no measured terms blamed the Subordinate Judge for passing ex parte orders for raising loans on the applications of the receiver without any investigation at all and the receiver also for borrowing money not for the benefit of the estate but for the personal benefit of Ram Narayan, the defendant. The High Court directed a full and proper investigation of the accounts of the receiver by a Commissioner and a Vakil of the High Court was appointed for that purposes.This Commissioner after a protracted enquiry submitted his report which was accepted by the High Court. Under the final orders passed by the High Court not only were the plaintiffs held not liable to pay any money to the receiver but the receiver was directed to pay a sum of Rs. 6,700 to the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs were also to receive Rs. 4,064 from the defendant Ram Narayan. The defendant was to pay Rs. 19,124 to the receiver and receiver was made personally liable for the loans that he had incurred. This order was made on the 23rd July 1913.4. In the meantime while the investigation of accounts was going on under orders of the High Court, Rashmoni together with her son Mohini executed a security bond (Ex. E-1) on the 1st August 1911 and it is upon the legal effect of this document that the decision of this case practically depends.By this security bond which was executed in favour of Suhasini Dasi, mortgagee in the mortgage bond of Mohini, Rashmoni purported to hypothecate all the properties that she got as heir of Haripada, as additional security for the loan of Rs. 30,00 already advanced to Mohini under the mortgage. As is stated already, two properties situated at Chetla were included in the mortgage of Mohini although they were already sold. The security bond recites that the mortgagee having discovered this fact was about to institute legal proceedings against the mortgagor and it was primarily to ward off these threatened proceedings and remove any apprehension from the minds of the mortgagee about the sufficiency of the security that this bond was executed. It is further stated in the bond that estate of Haripada in the hands of his mother was benefited by the deposit of Rs. 20,950 in court by Mohini Mohan out of the sum of Rs. 30,000 borrowed on the mortgage and that Mohini had spent the remaining amount of the loan towards clearing certain debts of Rashmoni herself and to meet the litigation and other expenses of both of them. Mohini died soon after on the 8th November 1911.On October 13, 1917 Suhasini instituted a suit for enforcing the mortgage and the security bond against Rashmoni and the heirs of Mohini. A preliminary decree was passed on compromise in that suit on the 24th September 1918 and on the 25th July 1919 the decree was made final. The decree was put into execution and on the 15th September 1919, along with other properties, the property in dispute was put up to sale and it was purchased by Annada Prasad Ghosh for Rs. 13,500. On the 14th November 1919 Bhubaneswari, wife of Ram Narayan, as guardian of her infant sons filed a suit, being Title Suit No. 254 of 1919 against Suhasini, Rashmoni and Annada attacking the validity of the mortgage decree obtained by Suhasini as well as the sale in execution thereof. This suit ended on the 6th July 1921 and the plaintiff gave up her claim.On September 5, 1922, Annada Ghosh borrowed a sum of Rs. 10,000 from Sarat Kumar Das, the original defendant No. 3 in the suit and the father of the present appellants and by way of equitable mortgage deposited with the lender the title deeds of the property No. 6, Dwarika Ghosh Lane. On the 14th September 1925 Annada sold the property by executing a conveyance in favour of the mortgagee Sarat Kumar Das for a consideration of Rs. 15,000. On 8th June 1939 Rashmoni died.About a year later on July 15, 1940 the three sons of Ram Narayan, who are the reversionary heirs of Haripada after the death of Rashmoni, commenced the present suit in the court of the Subordinate Judge at Alipore claiming to recover possession of the property on the allegation, that the security bond executed by Rashmoni not being supported by legal necessity, the sale in execution of the mortgage as well as the subsequent conveyance in favour of Sarat Kumar Das could pass only the right, title and interest of Rashmoni and could not after the reversionary rights of the plaintiffs. Several other persons were impleaded as parties defendants and a number of issues were raised with which we are not concerned in this appeal.What concerns us in this appeal is the dispute between the plaintiffs on the one hand and defendant No. 3 on the other and this dispute centered round three points,Whether the security bond (Ex. E-1) executed by Rashmoni along with Mohini was executed for legal necessity and was therefore binding on the reversioners of Haripada after the death of Rashmoni ?(2) Whether the fact that Mohini, who was the presumptive reversioner at that time, joined with his mother in executing the security bond would make it binding on the actual reversioner after the death of Rashmoni? In any event if such consent on the part of presumptive reversioner raised a presumption of legal necessity, was that evidence adduced by the parties ?(3) Whether the title of defendant No. 1 was protected, he being a stranger purchaser who had purchased the property from the purchaser at an execution sale after making proper enquiries and obtaining legal adviceThe trial Judge by his judgment dated the 22nd December 1944 decided all these points in favour of the plaintiffs and decreed the suit. On appeal by the defendant to the High Court, the decision of the trial Judge was affirmed. The heirs of defendant No. 3 have now come up to this court

Court's reasoning:
The contention, though somewhat plausible at first sight, seem to us to wholly without substance. In the first place the money borrowed by Mohini or deposited by him in court did not and could not benefit Haripadas estate at all. As was found, on investigation of accounts, under orders of the High Court later on, nothing at all was due to the receiver by the estate of Haripada or Mohini. On the other hand, both the brothers were entitled to get a fairly large sum of money from the receiver. The trial Judge found that there was no urgent necessity to borrow money for releasing the estate and in fact it was Mohini who acted in hot haste to execute the mortgage, his only objects being to get to properties in his own hands. It may be, that it was not possible to know the actual state of affairs with regard to the receivers accounts and consequently it might well have been thought prudent to borrow money to ward off what was considered to be a danger to the estate. This might furnish some excuse or explanation for Mohinis borrowing money on the 28th January 1911 but that could not make the act of Rashmoni in executing the security bond, seven months after that event, an act of prudent management on her part dictated either by legal necessity or consideration of benefit to the estate of her deceased son.In the first place it is to be noted that the total amount borrowed by Mohini was Rs. 30,000 out of which Rs. 20,950 only were required to be deposited in court. The recital in the security bond that the rest of the money was spent by Mohini to pay off certain debts of Rashmoni herself and also to meet the litigation and household expenses of both of them has been held by the Subordinate Judge to be false. It has been found on facts that Rashmoni had no occasion to incur any debts either for litigation expenses or for any other purpose. But the most important thing that would require consideration is the state of things actually existing at the time when the security bond was executed. Even if the release of the estate was considered to be desirable, that had been already accomplished by Mohini who borrowed money on his own responsibility. The utmost that could be said was that Rashmoni was bound to reimburse Mohini to the extent that the deposit of money of Mohini had benefited the estate of Haripada. The High Court has rightly pointed out the Rashmoni did not execute the bond to raise any money to pay off her share of the deposit and in fact no necessity for raising money for that purpose at all existed at thatour opinion the only object of executing the security bond was to protect Mohini who was threatened with legal proceedings by his creditor for having included a non-existent property in the mortgage bond. Rashmoni certainly acted at the instance of and for the benefit of Mohini and she might have been actuated by a feeling of maternal affection to save her son from a real or imaginary danger. But by no stretch of imagination could it be regarded as a prudent act on the part of a Hindu female heir which was necessary for the protection of the estate of the last male holder. In our opinion the view taken by the courts below is quite proper and as a concurrent finding of fact it should not be disturbed by thisdo no think that there could be any serious controversy about the law on this point.This alienation here was by way of mortgage and so no question of surrender could possibly arise. Mohini being the immediate reversioner who joined in the execution of the security bond must be deemed to have consented to the transaction. Such consent may raise a presumption that the transaction was for legal necessity or that the mortgagor had act therein after proper and bona fide enquiry and has satisfied himself as to the existence of suchBut this presumption is rebuttable and it is open to the actual reversioner to establish that there was in fact no legal necessity and there has been no proper and bona fide enquiry by the mortgagee. There is no doubt that both the courts below have proceeded on a correct view of law and both have come to the conclusion upon a consideration of the evidence in the case that presumption that arose by reason of the then reversioners giving consent to the transaction was rebutted by the facts transpiring inis true that there is a passage at the end of the judgment in Manokarnikas case (C) which lends some apparent support to the contention of the learnedour opinion the contention formulated in this form really involves a misconception of the legal position of an alience of a Hindu widows property. The interest of a Hindu widow in the properties inherited by her bears no analogy or resemblance to what may be described as an equitable estate in English law and which cannot be followed in the hands of a bona fide purchase for value withoutThe position therefore is that if there is no necessity in fact or if the alience could not prove that he made bona fide enquiries and was satisfied about its existence, the transfer is undoubtedly not void but the transferee would get only the widows estate in the property which does not affect in any way the interest of the reversioner. In this case the alienation was by way of mortgage. The finding of both the courts below is that there was no legal necessity which justified the execution of the security bond. The mortgagee also could not prove that there was representation of legal necessity and that she satisfied herself by bona fide enquiries that such necessity didour opinion the view taken by the High Court is quite proper. On this finding the security bond could operate only on the widows estate of Rashmoni and it was the interest alone which passed to the purchaser at the mortgage sale. The subsequent transferee could not claim to have acquired any higher right than what his predecessor had and it is immaterial whether he bona fide paid the purchase money or took proper legal advice.