Sir George Lowndes:-

These consolidated appeals arise out of a suit filed by Kunwar Vijai Verma to make good his claim to a moiety of the Pawayan Estate in the Shahjahanpur District of the United Provinces. The litigation has been protracted and in some ways singularly unfortunate, and the appeals as they come before this Board have little resemblance to the case originally tried. Only one of the issues originally raised is now in dispute and upon it their Lordships have not deemed it necessary to hear argument. It has been found by the Indian Courts, and is now admitted, that the Pawayan Estate was in the hands of Raja Fateh Singh, the father of Vijai Verma, an impartible Raj descending by the custom of male primogeniture, under which, on the Raja's death in December 1921, it would, in the absence of any testamentary disposition by him, have passed intact to his eldest son, Raja Indra Bikram Singh, the original defendant in the suit. His younger brother however claimed that the Estate was joint family property subject to the ordinary Mitakshara law, and alternatively that by the duly executed will of his father, half the Estate was devised to him. The trial Court held that the Esta