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TMI Blog1918 (12) TMI 5X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... g in 1903 without male issue, it reverted to him as the owner of the original estate under the custom attached to such fivai grants. 2. The action was brought on the 15th July, 1907, against Bai Devla, the widow of Kaliansing, who was admittedly in possession of the village claiming to hold the same for her minor adopted son, who was also joined as defendant No. 2, whom she alleged she had taken in adoption shortly after the death of her husband. Devla has since died, and the adopted son is the present appellant before this Board. The third defendant is a mortgagee claiming tinder a bond executed by Kaliansing. 3. Both the plaintiff and the defendant Shivsing are Chudasama Girasias, a caste of Hindu Rajpoots who, it is said, settled s ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nged between the parties by which the plaintiff's father acknowledged the absolute title of Kaliansing to the village in question excepting a small area which was taken by the plaintiffs father as consideration for the settlement. They also alleged that there was no failure of Kaliansing's male line as the second defendant had been validly adopted. To this the plaintiff demurred and alleged on his side a custom among the Chudasama Girasias which precluded the widow from making an adoption to her deceased husband or inheriting a jivai grant. This latter allegation was evidently put forward in order to strengthen the first, for it seems to have been thought that she could not make an adoption unless she could vest the adopted son with ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... this decree the learned Judges of the Bombay High Court have affirmed the finding of the First Court with regard to the factum and, as their Lordships understand the judgment of the High Court, the validity of Shivsing's adoption; they agreed with the trial Judge as to the existence of a right of reversion in the owner of the Taluka in respect of the jivai on the death of the last jivaidar without male issue. But they disagreed with him on the construction of the documents of 1871; they considered that the words on which the Subordinate Judge rested his judgment that the plaintiff's father acknowledged an absolute title in Kaliansing did not bear that meaning; and that even if those words did have that meaning, the agreement entered ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ghts. They also accept the conclusion at which the Courts in India arrived regarding the existence of a right of reversion in the holder of the Gamph estate. 9. Now it is to be observed that when a hereditary grant of the nature in dispute is made by a Hindu subject to the limitation that it shall be descendible in the direct male line, or, in other words, that it shall enure so long as the grantees' male line lasts, the existence of the line must be determined by the rules and provisions of the Hindu law, unless there be any custom varying those rules. The limitation itself is a variation of the Hindu law; where a further custom is alleged confining the line to natural-born issue alone, it must be proved affirmatively and conclusive ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ted son and the son of the body stand exactly in same position. Rajkumar Sarvadhikari's Lectures on Hindu Law, Again, it is to be remembered that an adopted son is the continuator of his adoptive father's line exactly as an aurasa son, and that an adoption, so far as the continuity of the line is concerned, has a retrospective effect; whenever the adoption may be made there is no hiatus in the continuity of the line. In fact, as Messrs. West and Buhler point out in their learned treatise on Hindu law, the Hindu lawyers do not regard the male line to be extinct or a Hindu to have died without male issue until the death of the widow renders the continuation of the line by adoption impossible. West Buhler's Hindu Law p. 996 Mu ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d the widow of the elder brother adopted a son to him. And this Board held that the adoption had the effect of defeating the right of the younger brother to the estate, and that the adopted son was entitled to possession. The rule enunciated in Raghunadha's case (1876) 1 Mad. 69 : L.R. 3 I.A 154 was followed in Bachoo v. Mankorebai (1907) 31 Bom, 373. In this case two brothers, Harkisondas and Bhagwandas, were members of a joint undivided Hindu family. Harkisondas died on the 14th September 1900, leaving his widow pregnant. On the 30th November following Bhagwandas made a will authorising his widow to adopt a son to him. Bhagwandas died on the 17th December 1900. Harki-sondas' widow gave birth to a son Bachoo next day, and in the th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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