Lord Dunedin :-

One Palchur Chenchurragavareddi, an inhabitant of a village in the district of Nellore, died on the 26th October,1914, at the age of about 60, and was possessed of considerable property. He left a widow, but no children and no near relatives except such as were relations of his wife. His wife had a sister, who had a son, Vemireddi Babureddi. On the 9th December, 1914, his widow and his nephew presented for registration a will before the Sub-Registrar.

The registration was opposed by the appellants in the present suit, who allege that they are the nearest agnates of the deceased and as such are entitled in reversion to succeed to the estate after the termination of the widow's interest, upon the ground that they conceived that the deceased had died intestate. Registration was refused, as it was considered that sufficient proof had not been given that the will was duly executed,and this decision of the Sub-Registrar was confirmed, on appeal by the Registrar.

The present appellants brought a suit for a declaration that they had the position of nearest agnates, and that the so-called will was not executed in fact, and was, if executed, executed by the testator while in a condition of unsound mind

To this suit defences were lodged for the widow and Vemireddi Babureddi, who was the chief taker under the will, in which they alleged that the will had been duly executed. A counter suit was brought by them to have it declared that the will was genuine, and also to have the Registrar enjoined to register the Will. These two suits came before Subordinate Judge.

In this state of matters, what might be called the natural order would be first to take up the question of whether the parties who were attacking the will had any title to raise the question, because, of course, unless they had such title - that is to say, unless they proved their relationship - they had no right to be heard, whether there was a will or not. But the learned Judge approached the questions in the other order, and after a prolonged investigation he held that the will had not been executed at all, and was a forgery. He then took up the question of relationship, and held that the relationship had not been sufficiently proved.

In the result, therefore, he dismissed both suits. On appeal, naturally the High Court took up the matter in the same order as the learned Subordinate Judge had done, and they came to the conclusion that the will had been duly executed. That being so, it did not become necessary to go into the question of relationship. The High Court gave these respondents here a decree in their suit and dismissed the appeal in the other suit.

From these decrees these consolidated appeals are brought to His Majesty in Council. The question of whether the testator was in a sound state of mind had really dropped out. As the Subordinate Judge found that the Will had not been executed, it was not necessary for him to go into the question of mental testamentary capacity ; it was very feebly insisted upon before the High Court, and it was, quite rightly, entirely given up before their Lordships,

Sir William Finlay, who argued the case exceedingly well, really put the only point in the case. He said that the execution of the will was necessarily a question of fact; that the fact depended in such a case upon credibility; that the Judge who had heard the witnesses had come to a certain conclusion; and that there was no sufficient reason for the High

Court to alter that. He quoted certain well-known authorities which, although authorities in the Courts in India, really represent a cannon which is equally good in every system of law, namely, that when you have to deal with a pure question of credibility very great weight ought necessarily to be given to the judgment of the Judge who saw the witnesses.

Their Lordships are not at all likely to throw any doubt upon that doctrine, nor do they think that the High Court threw any doubt upon it. It was just as alive to the do