Judgement

B. K. MUKHERJEA J.- This appeal, which has come before us on special leave, is directed against a judgment of an Appellate Bench of the Calcutta High Court, dated 16-5-1951, by which the learned Judges dismissed an appeal taken against an order, made by a simple Judge on the Original Side of that Court, under Cl. 13 of the Letters Patent, on the preliminary ground that the appeal was not competent in law.

2. There is no dispute about the material facts of the case which lie within a short compass. On 7-8-1947 a suit was filed by the respondent Kumar Rupendra Deb Raikot in the Court of the Subordinate Judge at Jalpaiguri in West Bengal, being Title Suit No. 40 of 1947,-for recovery of possession of a large estate known as Baikunthapur Raj situated in that district, on the allegation that he being the eldest son of late Prosanna Deb Rajkot the last holder of the estate, became entitled to the properties on the death of his father under a custom of the family which excludes all females from inheritance and follows the rule of lineal primogeniture in matters of succession. Prosanna died in December 1946 and Asrumati Debi, the appellant before us, is admittedly his widow. There