Charles A. Turner, Kt., C.J.
1. Raja Sri Surfoji, the appellant, claimed a certificate under Act XXVII of 1860 to collect the debts due to the estate of her highness Mathu Sri Jayantiamha Boyi Sahiba, one of the junior widows of his highness the last raja of Tanjore.
2. He claims to have been adopted by the senior widow with the consent of all or several of the junior widows of the raja and under an authority conferred on the senior Rani by the raja.
3. That an adoption in some form was made at the time asserted by the appellant, July 1st, 1863, was not disputed by her highness the present princess, the only surviving child of the late raja, but the validity of the adoption is disputed. It is denied that the raja at any time authorized an adoption. The alleged authority is assorted in dubious terms, but the appellant rests his case mainly on the arguments that authority is not necessary for the validity of an adoption by a widow under the Mahratta law, and that the succession to the family is governed by that law.
4. The circumstances which followed the decease of the late raja are fully stated in the careful judgment of the Judge. The title of the appellant has sometimes been assorted and sometimes been ignored by the senior rani according as it suited the efforts she made to recover the restoration of the dignity and possessions of the Tanjore raj.
5. In administering the provisions of Act XXVII of 1860 it has not been the practice of the Courts to enter on the determination of intricate questions of law or of fact.
6. It has been the practice to issue a certificate to the person who has prima facie the clearest title to the succession, such as the natural heir, and to leave a person, whose claim to a superior title is on reasonable grounds disputed, to establish that title by regular suit.
7. The questions whether the adoption was authorized, or whether, without such authority, it was valid by reason of a special law governing the family, are in this case of such intricacy that they cannot be satisfactorily determined in a proceeding which the law intended to be summary.
8. The appellant's title is not now for the first time repudiated. It was expressly challenged by the respondent as soon as it was asserted, and its validity was pronounced by the High Court in 1868 to be very problematic--Jijoyiamba Bayi Saiba v. Kamakshi Bayi Saiba 3 M.H.C.R. 445. Moreover, the claim of the appellant to the private property of the raj, when advanced in an execution proceeding in 1866, was rejected and he refrained from taking measures to assert his title. Under the circumstances we consider the District Judge has only followed what has become the recognized practice of the Court in refusing to enter on an exhaustive inquiry into the appellant's title in these proceedings.
9. The appeal is dismissed with costs.