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1906 DIGILAW 168 (CAL)

Shoroshibala Debi v. Anandamoyee Debi

1906-07-28

body1906
JUDGMENT 1. This appeal arises out of an application presented by one Soroshibala Debi for revocation of probate of the Will said to have been left by her father, one Gopi Mohan Roy Chowdhury. The Will purports to bear date the 20th February 1897. Upon the death of Gopi Mohan, which took place on the 7th March 1897, an application was made for probate of the Will by Anandmoyee and Bhubaneswari, the two widows of Gopi Mohan, on the 3rd February 1898. Soroshibala, the Petitioner in this case, was a minor at that time, and though citation seems to have been issued, and was issued, apparently at the instance of the applicants for probate, it was upon her as represented by her mother Bhubaneswari, and the application not being opposed by anybody, the Will was not proved in solemn form, but what may be said to be in common form, and probate was granted on the 7th March 1898. Soroshibala has since been married, and she has attained her majority; and the petition that she presented in the Court below on the nth March 1904 was under sec. 50 of the Probate and Administration Act, and upon the grounds, first, that the proceedings to obtain the grant were defective in substance, in that she was not cited as she ought to have been, and secondly, that the Will propounded by Anandmoyee and Bhubaneswari was a forged document. The learned Judge of the Court below confined his inquiry to a single point, that point being whether the application of Soroshibala was a genuine one and whether, in the probate proceedings, her interests were set aside by fraud and collusion. Evidence was necessarily confined to this point, and to this point only, and the learned Judge, being of opinion that there was no reason to suppose that the interests of Soroshibala were set aside by fraud and collusion on the part of her mother, and that the application presented by her was but the outcome of a concert between Bhubaneswari, the Petitioner, and her husband Ramtanu, and was indeed inspired by Bhubaneswari herself, held that the petition could not be granted. In this view of the matter, the learned Judge has dismissed the application. In this view of the matter, the learned Judge has dismissed the application. We are however, unable to agree with that officer in the view that he has adopted, and the course that he has pursued in dealing with the matter of the application which was presented to him. The first question that he had to apply his mind to was whether the proceedings to obtain the grant were defective in substance. One of the illustrations to sec. 50 of the Probate and Administration Act, by way of explanation of what 'just cause' is runs thus :- The grant was made without citing parties who ought to have been cited;" and the question that here arises is whether the citation that was taken out in the name of Soroshibala was a proper citation; for, if it was not, it is obvious that there was really no citation. As already mentioned, the citation was taken out in the name of Bhubaneswari, who was one of the applicants for probate of the Will. Under the law, citation is taken out against such parties as are interested in contesting the application for probate, such parties being, as it were, Defendants to the proceeding in the matter of the grant of probate. And looking at the matter from this point of view, it seems to be obvious that the Petitioner, Bhubaneswari, could not represent both her interest and the interest of Soroshibala, then a minor. The proper course for the Petitioner in that case to pursue was to have somebody appointed by the Court to act as guardian of Soroshibala, or to take out citation against her represented by her next friend, or an officer of the Court, who could have no interest adverse to Soroshibala herself. It has however been contended by the learned vakil for the Respondent, that at the time that the application was made by Bhubaneswari for probate of the Will of her husband, Soroshi had but a contingent interest in the estate left by her father, the persons then interested being Bhubaneswari and her co-wife Anandmoyee, and it could not be said that her (Bhubaneswari's) interest and the interest of Soroshibala were antagonistic to each other and that, therefore, Bhubaneswari could well represent the interest of Soroshibala in the probate proceeding. We are however, unable to accept this view of the matter, for though Soroshibala had a contingent interest, yet it must be taken that she had an interest, however, contingent it might be, and when the Will in question declares or gives Rhubaneswari and her co-wife the power to adopt, the moment such adoption is made, Soroshi would be entirely cut off Looking at the matter from this point of view, it can hardly he said that the interest of Bhubaneswari was not adverse to or it was the same as that of Soroshibala. Upon these considerations, we are of opinion that the citation that was taken out in the name of Sorsohibala was really no citation at all and the proceedings were defective from this point of view. As to the conclusion arrived at by the learned Judge that the petition presented by Soroshibala was inspired by Bhubaneswari and that Soroshibala, her husband and Bhubaneswari were ' acting hand in glove together,' all that we need say is that, assuming that it is so, if she has a right in herself to present the petition that she presented in the Court below, and if she is entitled to have the proceedings set aside, the mere circumstance that she was inspired by somebody else, or that she was acting in concert with somebody else, could not take away the right which she otherwise possessed. Upon these considerations, we are of opinion that the order of the learned Judge refusing the application of Soroshibala must be set aside, and that the grant of probate should be revoked. We order accordingly : each party will bear his own costs in both the Courts. We desire to add that the view that we have expressed is supported by the observations of this Court in the case of Walter Rebells v. Maria Rebells 2 C. W. N. 100 (1897)