Sir John Edge :-

This is an appeal by the plaintiff, Musammat Sheokuarbai, from a decree, dated the 5th April, 1917, of the Court of the Judicial Commissioner, Central Provinces, which set aside a decree of the District Judge of Nimar and dismissed her suit.

The parties to the suit are Sitambari Jains. The plaintiff is the widow of Shrichand Das, Gujrathi, who died about thirty years ago and left no son, but left a daughter who died some years before 1909. The plaintiff in her suit claimed a declaration that the defendant Jeoraj, whose natural father, Punamchand, had been her brother, was not the legally adopted son of her deceased husband. Punamchand died before 1909, leaving his widow Munnabai him surviving, who died before this suit was instituted. The defendant alleged that the plaintiff' had validly adopted him, on 28th June, 1909, as a son to her deceased husband.

The Jains are of Hindu origin; they are Hindu dissenters, and although, as was pointed out by Mr. Mayne in para 46 of his "Hindu Law and Usage"-

Generally adhering to the ordinary Hindu law, that is, the law of the three superior castes, they recognise no divine authority in the Vedas and do not practise the Shradhs, o