Judgment

CHINNAPPA REDDY, J. :- Smt. Dipo, plaintiff in Suit No. 8 of 1962 in the Court of the Subordinate Judge 1st Class, Amritsar is the appellant in this appeal by special leave. She sued to recover possession of the properties which. belonged to her brother, Bua Singh, who died in 1952. She claimed to be the nearest heir of Bua Singh. The suit was filed in forma pauperis. The suit was contested by the defendants who are the sons of Ganda Singh, paternal uncle of Bua Singh. The grounds of contest were that Smt. Dipo was not the sister of Bua Singh and that even if she was the sister, the defendants were preferential heirs according to custom, as the whole of the land was ancestral in the hands of Bua Singh. The learned Subordinate Judge held that the plaintiff, Smt. Dipo was the sister of Bua Singh. He found that most of the suit properties were ancestral properties in the hands of Bua Singh, while a few were not ancestral. Proceeding on the basis that according to the custom, the sister was excluded by collaterals in the case of ancestral property while she was entitled to succeed to non-ancestral property, the learned Subordinate Judge granted a decree in favour of the plainti