Judgement

Appeal (No. 115 of 1920) from a judgment and decree of the High Court in its appellate jurisdiction (September 21, 1918) reversing a decree of Marten J. (December 18, 1917).

The appeal related to the succession to the estate of one Haji Abu Haji Habib, a Halai Memon, who died intestate at Bombay on November 30, 1914, leaving him surviving a widow (respondent No. 2), a son (respondent No. 1), and two daughters—namely, the appellant and a daughter who died shortly after her father.

The appellant, the intestates daughter, brought the present suit in 1915 in the original civil jurisdiction of the High Court. By her plaint she claimed the share to which she was entitled in her fathers estate on the assumption that the succession was governed by Mahomedan law, and administration. The first defendant-respondent by his written statement pleaded that the intestate was a native of Porbandar, and alleged facts to show that he had retained his domicil there, although that term was not used in the pleading. He stated that Halai Memons of Porbandar and of Kathiawar generally, either had retained the Hindu law of succession upon their conversion to Mahomedanism, or that that law was the