Lord Blanesburgh:-

This is an appeal from a decree dated 11th January 1933 of the Chief Court of Oudh at Luoknow in appearance modifying, but in principle reversing a decree dated 5th January 1931 of the Court of the Subordinate Judge, Sultanpur. The suit in which these decrees were pronounced was commenced on 11th April 1929, by the present respondent, the widow of the Raja Partab Bahadur Singh of Kutari, against the present appellant to recover payment of Rs. 15,243 and accrued interest alleged to be due to the respondent for maintenance under a deed of gift of 23rd May 1926, made in favour of the appellant by his uncle, Baghwan Baksh Singh. By that deed, amongst other provisions made for the appellant, and together also with benefits for the infant son of the donor, and for the respondent, the appellant, taking title thereto from the donor, was constituted in effect tenant for life of the Kutari estate, with the exception of two villages otherwise donated, but he was in return laid under an obligation to provide maintenance for the respondent at the rate of Rs.5000 a year. It was in respect of his liability in this regard that the respondent's suit was brought.

The appellant's answer to the suit was that the deed of gift in question, with a deed of relinquishment of the Kutari estate of even date made by the respondent in favour of Bhagwan Baksh Singh, was part of a fraudulent arrangement designed by the respondent and Bhagwan in the interest of the infant son of Bhagwan to deprive the appellant of the inheritance of that estate, to which, as both well knew, he was entitled as the adopted son of the late Raja and as devisee under his will. To these allegations the reply of the respondent, confining that reply at present to the matters with which their Lordships must primarily concern themselves, was that the appellant, the nephew of the Raja, had never been taken in adoption by him: that the will of the Raja propounded by the appellant was a forgery: that the deeds of relinquishment and gift in question constituted a valid family arrangement, conceived in the interest of the appellant himself; that he had accepted the benefit of the arrangement; that except under the deed of gift he had no interest whatever in the Kutari estate and that as he had accepted title under that deed and was in actual possession under that title, the maintenance claimed was indisputably due and payable.

The trial was a protracted one; and at the close of the evidence the two questions for decision and to which all else was subordinate were seen to be these : 1. Had the appellant proved his adoption by Partab Bahadur Singh, Raja of Kutari, unregistered as that adoption was? 2. Had the will, also unregistered of date the 28tb June 1918, propounded by the appellant, been proved by him to be the will of the Raja ? Both of these questions the learned Subordinate Judge answered in the affirmative. The deed of relinquishment and the deed of gift also, he held to be a fraud upon the appellant and worthless as against him. But the respondent was by general law entitled to maintenance out of the estate and he accordingly decreed Rs.6000 in respect of arrears and a sum of Rs.200 a month as the proper maintenance for the widow of a Raja to be paid by the appellant now that his succession to the Raj had been established as against the respondent. On appeal from that decree the Chief Court, disagreeing with the learned Subordinate Judge, answered both questions in the negative, and, for reasons which the learned Judges gave, held the appellant bound, in hoc statu, by the terms of the deed of gift. The Court accordingly on 11th January 1933 decreed the respondent's claim in full. Hence this appeal. The narrative of relevant facts upon which the Board must now embark is necessarily somewhat involved even when confined, as it will be, to those facts which have a bearing upon the two main questions at issue. The narrative however will be simplified by reference to the