Judgement Appeal from a decree of the High Court (Feb. 28, 1901) varying a decree of the same Court in its original jurisdiction (July 3, 1900). The question at issue is as to the claims of the respondents, an alleged wife and daughter of one Haji Haroon Sidick, the testator in the cause, against his estate. Haji Haroon was a Cutchee Memon, a member of a class of persons who being originally Hindus became converts to Mahomedanism, but retained according to the settled law of the Presidency of Bombay the Hindu law of inheritance. The respondents are Mahomedans whose claims against the said estate are governed by Hindu law. Both Courts decided in favour of the plaintiffs that they were respectively wife and daughter of the deceased, and entitled to maintenance thereout, the High Court, however, reducing the amounts allotted for that purpose by the lower Court. Sir W. Rattigan, K.C., and Cowell, for the appellants. Jardine, K.C., and (7. W. Arathoon, for the respondents, ere not heard. Law. Rep. 30 Ind. App. 127 ( 1902- 1903) Haji Saboo Sidick V. Ayeshabai 45 April 30. The judgment of their Lordships was delivered by LORD ROBERTSON. The respondents were the plaintiffs in a suit brought to assert their rights as one of the widows and a daughter respectively of one Haji Haroon Sidick, a merchant of Bombay, who died on December 20, 1898. The plaint was filed on September 30, 1899. It originally raised, inter alia, the question whether Haji Haroon Sidick died intestate, but it is not now disputed that he left a will, under which the appellants, other than Fatmabai, are the executors. Fatmabai is admittedly a widow of the deceased. The appellants, on November 24, 1899, filed a joint written statement; and issues were settled on June 18, 1900. The main question raised by the plaint was whether the deceased had entered into a Nika marriage with the respondent Ayeshabai. This was keenly disputed, the case of the appellants being that at the alleged marriage ceremony the deceased had been personated. On this pure question of fact there are concurrent judgments in favour of the respondents; and accordingly their Lordships have not been invited to reconsider its merits. The appellants confined their argument to four matters, the first of which is, in truth, inseparable from the merits. 1. On this pure question of fact there are concurrent judgments in favour of the respondents; and accordingly their Lordships have not been invited to reconsider its merits. The appellants confined their argument to four matters, the first of which is, in truth, inseparable from the merits. 1. At the trial it was proved that the deceased had executed a will after the alleged marriage, and in it there was no mention made of either of the respondents. So far as it goes, this is an item of evidence against the marriage having taken place ; but, at best, it is only an item, more or less cogent, and its cogency must depend on whether the circumstances of the marriage made it natural that the wife should be an object of the husbands testamentary bounty and improbable that he should have left her to depend on her legal right to maintenance. In the present instance, the Courts below have thought that the circumstances of this marriage made it not unlikely that the testator should take the latter course. It is obvious not only that this is a very tenable view of the question, taken by itself, but also that the point raised by the appellants could only be made anything of by weighing it in relation to the whole evidence, on which the Courts below have concurrently preferred the respondents contention. 2. A draft of the will, also containing no mention of the respondents, was tendered in evidence, apparently as of itself furnishing similar evidence to that afforded by the will. This draft, however, was written, not by the testator, but by another person, and in their Lordships judgment it was rightly rejected. This was not a written statement made by the deceased. 3. At the trial questions were put and disallowed which went to shew that Ayeshabai had been unchaste after the death of her husband, and had thus (as the appellants contended) disentitled herself to maintenance. This was not a written statement made by the deceased. 3. At the trial questions were put and disallowed which went to shew that Ayeshabai had been unchaste after the death of her husband, and had thus (as the appellants contended) disentitled herself to maintenance. On the record, as it stood, the appellants had neither averment nor issue of such unchastity, and all that they could point to was their denial that " the plaintiffs " were entitled to maintenance, and the fifth issue, whether " the plaintiffs are entitled in any event to maintenance or marriage expenses." It is manifest that those general words, equally applicable to mother and child, are entirely unsuitable for the statement of the specific fact of incontinence on the part of the mother, and the words of the fifth issue are in fact an echo of the plaintiffs own pleading. The appellants sought to better their position by applying for leave formally to raise the issue whether, in the event of the plaintiff Ayeshabai being entitled to maintenance from the date of the deceased death, she has not forfeited such right by unchastity ; and, on this application being refused, the appellants applied for leave to file a supplemental written statement raising the question of unchastity. Both applications were refused. Both were made after the plaintiffs case was closed. It appears to their Lordships that it was out of the question that, after the plaintiffs case was closed, this new averment should be made, necessitating as it did the opening up of the whole case, without any suggestion that the facts relied on had newly come to the knowledge of the appellants, and had before been excusably Law. Rep. 30 Ind. App. 127 ( 1902- 1903) Haji Saboo Sidick V. Ayeshabai 46 unknown to them. The proposal that this matter should now be reopened is the more unreasonable as the decree appealed against contains a dum casta clause. 4. The only other point was as to the amount of aliment. No cause whatever has been shewn for interfering with the careful decision immediately under review, which modified the decree of the judge of first instance. Their Lordships will humbly advise His Majesty that the appeal ought to be dismissed. The appellants must pay the costs of the appeal.