Judgement

Five Consolidated Appeals (Nos. 131 and 132 of 1929), as to the first four (No. 131) from three decrees of the Chief Court of Oudh (February 29, 1928) which partly affirmed and partly reversed a decree of the Additional Subordinate Judge of Lucknow (July 4, 1923), and as to the fifth (No. 132) from a decree of the Chief Court reversing a decree of the Additional Subordinate Judge, the respective decrees being of the dates above stated.

The appeals arose out of two suits instituted upon the death in 1921 of Nawab Baqar Ali, a Mahomedan of the Shia sect, survived by two widows and sons and daughters, the eldest son (by the first widow) being Mohammad Sadiq Ali Khan, the appellant in the first appeal. The property of the deceased included a taluqdari estate in Oudh known as Kunwa Khera, as to which the grandfather of the deceased had been recorded in lists 1 and 2 under s. 8 of the Oudh Estates Act, 1869.

The first suit was brought by the second widow Fakhr Jahan Begam, the first respondent in the first appeal, and her two children against the other survivors of the family, claiming their respective shares, according to the Mahomedan law applicable to Shias, in the property