Research › Search › Judgment

Jharkhand High Court · body

2002 DIGILAW 318 (JHR)

Nepura Loharin @ Nepuri Loharin v. Saro Devi

2002-03-08

GURUSHARAN SHARMA

body2002
JUDGMENT Gurusharan Sharma, J. 1. Plaintiff is appellant. She purchased the suit land by registered sale- deed dated 31.3.1969 from defendant No. 2. 2. According to plaintiff, on 11.2.1982 defendant No. 2 came to her and asked her to go to Daltonganj for getting money from Government as free grant to purchase bullock. At Daltonganj defendant No. 2 asked her to put LTI on some papers and in this manner defendant No. 2 played fraud and got a deed of gift executed by her in respect of suit property in favour of his daughter, defendant No. 1. 3. Defendant No. 1 contested the suit and described plaintiff as concubine of her father, defendant No. 2. who had executed a nominal sale deed in respect of suit land without payment of any consideration to provide her mental security. 4. According to her. plaintiff came to Daltonganj on 11.2.1982 voluntarily and executed a deed of gift in respect of the suit property in her favour. 5. Plaintiff filed suit for declaration that deed of gift dated 11.2.1982 purported to have been executed by her along with defendant No. 2 in favour of defendant No. 1 for the suit land was out and out a void document and not binding on her. 6. The suit was dismissed holding that plaintiff was concubine of defendant No. 2 and in order to give her mental security, defendant No. 2 had executed the sale deeds (Exts. C and C/l) and she failed to prove her case of fraud as pleaded in plaint relating to execution of the deed of gift dated 11.2.1982. She was. therefore.not entitled to get the declaration aforesaid. 7. The first appellate Court also affirmed the trail Courts findings and dismissed the appeal filed by plaintiff. 8. At the time of admission of the appeal, following substantial question of law was framed : "The question of the law that arise in the instant appeal is as to whether the entire approach of the trial Court was vitiated on account of the fact that the Court below failed to take notice of the fact that the plaintiff was a rustic villager and an illiterate lady. Consequently the test to be applied in such a case was whether there was convincing proof about independent advice and about the document having been read over and explained to her, particularly in view of the fact that the document deprived her and her children of any right in the property and was executed in favour of a person in whose favour, in normal circumstances, such a document would not have been executed, without there being any special reason for the gift." 9. Admittedly plaintiff was married with Budhu Lohar, who died and thereafter she was living with defendant No. 2. She never married defendant No. 2, after her husband Budhu Lohar died. 10. However, in the sale-deed, Ext. C executed by defendant No. 2 in her favour, she was described as wife of defendant No. 2. In the voters list of Daltonganj Constituency of the year 1966 (Exhibit F) also plaintiff was shown as wife of Yado Pandey. defendant No. 2. It was established that though plaintiff was widow and not legally married wife of defendant No. 2, but she was living with him as concubine and the plaintiffs Case was that she believed statement of defendant No. 2 and came to Daltonganj with him, but execution of gift deed was not an act of her conscious execution. 11. After going through the statement of the plaintiff, who was the solitary witness about the fraud, which was alleged to have been played by defendant No. 2 in execution and registration of the deed of gift (Exhibit A). Courts below came to the finding that from her evidence it was clear that after execution of the sale deed in the year 1960 (Exhibit C/1), defendant No. 2 never approached her and as such on her own evidence her case of fraud as alleged in the plaint fell on the ground. It was also proved that plaintiff was living with defendant No. 1 in the suit house since last thirty years and for the said property, sale deed (Exhibit C/l) was executed by defendant No. 2 in her favour in the year 1960. 12. It is pertinent to notice that defendant No. 2 also joined execution of deed of gift (Exhibit A) along with plaintiff and there was special recital therein that defendant No. 1. 12. It is pertinent to notice that defendant No. 2 also joined execution of deed of gift (Exhibit A) along with plaintiff and there was special recital therein that defendant No. 1. the donee shall become absolute owner of the suit house and the land alter death of both the plaintiff as well as defendant No. 2. Plaintiff miserably failed to prove any fraud to have been played by defendant No. 2 in execution and registration of deed of gift (Exhibit A). 13. There is no merit in this Second Appeal, which is concluded by concurrent findings of fact recorded by two Courts below. It is accordingly dismissed, but without costs.