Radhan Singh and Others vs Kuarji Dichhit and Another

John Edge, Kt., C.J. and Burkitt, J.—On the evidence we are prepared to hold that the plaintiff-appellants had made out their case. But their case does not rest there. The suit in the Court below was decided on the 31st of March 1894. This appeal was preferred to this Court on the 7th of June 1894, and on the 24th of April 1895 a vakil for the appellants presented an application to this Court for admission of evidence which was not before the Court below. That application was supported by an affidavit of one of the plaintiffs, which shows that after the decree in the Court below he, on the 20th of April 1894, was given by one Mangli Prasad an attested copy of a rubkar of the Magistrate of Jaunpur, dated the 7th of December 1832. The rubkar was a judgment delivered by the Magistrate in a proceeding between one Sheoratan Singh on one side and Gauri Shankar Singh and Dyal Narain Singh on the other, and related to a lease alleged to have been given by Bairisal Singh to one Ghisa Singh, father of Sheoratan. Mangli Prasad was the great-grandson of that Sheoratan Singh who was party to those proceedings. We are of opinion that the rubkar is admissible u/s 9 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, and also being of opinion that the plaintiffs had shown substantial cause why we should admit the attested copy in evidence, we admitted the document u/s 568 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Now, that document puts the dispute in this case beyond question. It related to a dispute between the two zamindars of one of the villages now in suit and a person who alleged he was their tenant. These two zamindars were Gauri Shankar Singh and Dyal Narain Singh. Gauri Shankar Singh is referred to in that rubkar as the son of Balwant Singh. Bairisal Singh, who was one of the sons of Raja Ram Singh, is referred to in the same rubkar as the uncle of Gauri Shankar Singh and as the grantor of the lease to the father of Sheoratan Singh. The other zamindar, who was a party to those proceedings, was Dyal Narain Singh, and be was described in the rubkar as the son of Sheo Narain Singh, deceased. Dyal Narain Singh and Sheo Narain Singh were men beyond all dispute descended from Raja Ram Singh. In our opinion that rubkar does establish the fact that in 1832 Gauri Shankar Singh was one of the zamindars of a village now in dispute and nephew of Bairisal Singh, who admittedly was a son of Raja Ram Singh. The rubkar comes as it does with very great force. Long before the time when the plaintiffs became aware of the existence of this attested copy, they had, in the suit which had already been dismissed, pledged themselves to proving that Gauri Shankar Singh was a son of Balwant Singh, who was a. son of Baja Bam Singh and a brother of Bairisal Singh. The copy is a genuine copy. It was not got for the purpose of instituting the present suit. The suit was not founded on any information supplied by it, and the record in which was the document of which this was a copy was destroyed in the Mutiny. And the copy comes from the proper custody of a descendant of one of the parties to the proceedings before the Magistrate. We find that Gauri Shankar Singh was son of Balwant Singh, who was a brother of Bairisal and Balwant, sons of Raja Ram, and that the plaintiffs are, as reversioners of Sheobaran Singh, entitled to sue. The Subordinate Judge, having disposed of the suit on the preliminary point of pedigree, did not try the issue as to whether there existed such necessity as entitled Musammat Gulab Kuar to make the mortgages in question or either of them. We set aside the decree of the Court below, and we remand the case u/s 562 of the CPC for disposal of such issues as arise in the case and have not already beer disposed of. We allow this appeal with costs.