Privy Council Court December 1935 Judgments

Nathu Lal and Another Vs. Babu Ram and Others

Court: Privy Council

Sir George Rankin: The plaintiffs, on 22nd March 1927,sued the defendants in ejectment to recover possession of certain zemindary property and a share in a house (haveli). The defendants had obtained mutation of names from the revenue authorities on the death of Mt. Naraini who held possession during her lifetime. Plaintiff 1, Nathu Lal, is the only son of a brother of Mt. Naraini's husband, and as such he is admitted to be the only person entitled to succeed to any estate of which she was full owner as distinct from estate held by her as a limited owner. The second plaintiff is a purchaser from the first and has been joined as such. The defendants, four in number, are sued as being the persons in possession of the property claimed, but the title under which they defend their possession is that they are the reversioners of Jai Sukh Ram, Mt. Naraini's father. From the pedigree which has been prefixed to this judgment it will be seen that they are the sons of Mt. Mullo, a sister of Narai...

Ghanshayam Das Jagnani Vs. (Firm) Ramnarayan Ganeshnarayan

Court: Privy Council

Reported in: AIR1936PC89

Lord Alness: This is an appeal from the High Court of Judicature at Patna. That Court by a judgment dated 2nd June 1931, dismissed the suit brought by one Ghanshayam Das Jagnani, now deceased, but referred to in this judgment as the appellant, for the purpose of restraining an alleged infringement by the respondents of the appellant's Indian letters patent No. 14,245, dated 12th July 1928. The Court held that the appellant's letters patent were invalid by reason of anticipation and want of subject-matter. Having regard to the course which the discussion upon the appeal took before the Board, their Lordships are absolved from considering the appellant's patent on its merits. The position which the case assumed is this. The respondents contended, inter alia, that the appellant's patent was anticipated by a prior English specification of one Martin, No. 5,641 of 1883, and the appellant did not dispute that, if that specification was duly published in India prior to 1928, it anticipated hi...

Bullabh Das and Another Vs. Nur Mohammad and Another

Court: Privy Council

Sir George Rankin: This suit concerns a plot of land in Mohalla Begumganj in the City of Lucknow measuring between seven and eight biswas. The purpose of the suit is to establish that this plot of land is a graveyard in the sense of the Mahomedan law, that is to say extra commercium and dedicated for the benefit of Mahomedans in general in such sense that private ownership therein does not exist. The suit is a representative suit, the plaintiffs having obtained an order under O. 1, R. 8, Civil PC. Their grievance against defendant 1, Ballabh Das, is that by a deed dated 1st February 1928, he purported to take a transfer of this land from defendant 4, Mt. Musaheb Khanam, who conveyed the land to him professing to have derived title thereto from one Kale Khan. The plaintiffs' claim against defendants 2 and 3 is nowhere clearly stated, but at the trial the case made against them was that they had encroached upon the land in suit by the erection of a wall and door as additions to a house w...

Cora Lillian Mcpherson Vs. Oran Leo Mcpherson

Court: Privy Council

LORD BLANESBURGH: Questions of wide general importance-of interest in some of their aspects to the whole Dominion and even beyond-are raised by this appeal from the Supreme Court of the Province of Alberta. The questions discussed in the judgments appealed from are concerned with the degree of publicity called for at the trial of divorce suits-in particular undefended divorce suits in the Province: their Lordships however will have to deal, in addition, with the effect upon and decree nisi made at such a trial and upon a decree absolute following thereon when it is shown-as in this case is alleged, that the proceedings at the trial were devoid of sufficient publicity-were, in short, not held in "Open Court." The facts which raise these questions are not in the present case in dispute and may be stated as follows : The appellant and the respondent- they will throughout be generally so referred to-were married on 17th April 1908, in the United States. Their subsequent matrimonial domicil...

(Marjorie L'Estrange) Trickett Vs. Queensland Insurance Co. Ltd. and O ...

Court: Privy Council

Lord Alness: This is an appeal from a judgment of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand, dated 25th November 1932, affirming, by a majority, a judgment of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, whereby judgment was entered for the respondent company. The issues in the case lie within a narrow compass. The appellant, who was plaintiff in the action, and whose title is not in dispute, is a daughter of a retired civil servant named Alfred John Ernest Wiggs. Wiggs was killed in a motor accident on the night of 17th November 1930. At the time of his death he was insured with the respondent company under a policy of motor insurance; and the claim made by the plaintiff in the action was for a sum of 1,000 payable, as she maintained, under the said policy, in respect of the death of her father. The question in the appeal is whether, in the circumstances under which Wiggs was killed, the respondent company is exempted from liability by reason of one of the exceptions in the policy of insurance. The pol...

Tyagaraja Mudaliyar and Another Vs. Vedathanni

Court: Privy Council

Sir John Wallis: The plaintiff Vedathanni, widow of the late Ramalinga Mudaliyar, who died without issue on 23rd December 1912, instituted this suit, on 25th July 1925, in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Negapatam, against the two widows of T. Somasundara Mudaliyar, her husband's brother, who had survived him, impleading also the minor defendant 3 who had been adopted by the junior widow on 1st July 1925, and defendants 4 and 5 who had been appointed receivers of the family properties in the suit instituted by defendant 1 disputing the adoption. The plaintiff claimed to recover arrears of maintenance from 1st January 1914, when she began to live separately from her husband's family at the rate of Rs. 10,000 a year. It was stated in the plaint that the ante-adoption deed executed on behalf of the minor defendant 3 by his natural father, on 21st June 1925, in favour of the adopting widow had made a provision for the plaintiff's maintenance which would work out at Rs. 10,000 a year ...

Gujrat Ginning and Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Ahmedabad, Vs. Motilal Hira ...

Court: Privy Council

Lord Maugham: The appellant company-the Gujrat Ginning and Manufacturing Co., Ltd.-appeal from an injunction granted by the District Judge at Ahmedabad and affirmed by the High Court of Bombay restraining them from interfering with the passage of railway wagons between the respondent's land and the line of the Bombay Baroda and Central India Railway upon railway lines laid down in the appellants' premises. Part of the order complained of requires the appellants to replace certain rails which they had taken up. The suit was brought by the Motilal Hirabhai Spinning, Weaving and Manufacturing Company, Limited (the respondents) in the Court of the Subordinate Judge at Ahmedabad on 29th June 1923. The trial Judge had dismissed the suit. A third company, the Gujrat Spinning and Weaving Company, Limited, has to be referred to and as its name is very similar to the name of the appellants, it will be referred to in this judgment as the “third company". The three companies just mentioned a...

Monohar Mukerji Vs. Bhupendra Nath Mukerji and Others

Court: Privy Council

Reported in: AIR1936PC325

LORD THANKERTON: This is an appeal from the judgment and decree of the High Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, dated 26th April 1928, which set aside a decree of the Subordinate Judge of the Second Court at Hooghly, made in title suit No. 13 of 1913 on 3rd April 1928, and remanded the case to be dealt with in accordance with the directions contained in the judgment. The suit was instituted in 1913 by the present appellant, seeking to obtain the removal of Raj Peary Mohan Mukerji, the original defendant 1, from the office of shebait to the debuttar estate founded by the will of the Raja's grandfather, Jaga Mohan Mukerji, and to set aside the purchase of lot Bahirgora, part of the debattar estate, by the Raja in January 1913. After protracted litigation, it was finally decided by this Board on 19th April 1921, Reported in 1922 PC 235. in affirming the judgment of the High Court, that the Raja should be removed from his office and that the sale should be set aside, and the Raj...