1. One Peari Devi filed a suit in the court of the Second Subordinate Judge, Patna, which was registered as Title Suit No.168 of 1972, against the petitioners in this Court for a declaration that a certain deed of gift in favour of petitioner Shivaji Mandir, was void, illegal, etc. During the pendency of the suit, Peari Devi died and Biteshwar Singh, who is the Opposite Party in this Court, filed an application for substitution in place of the deceased sole plaintiff, Peari Devi. The Opposite Party claimed to be the legal representative of the deceased plaintiff, being her legatee under a registered Will dated the 19th September, 1980, executed by the deceased plaintiff in his favour. According to the Opposite Party, the entire properties of Pearl Devi devolved on him under the aforesaid Will.

2. The defendant-petitioners filed a rejoinder to that application for substitution, opposing the prayer for substitution. Accoroincg to the rejoinder, the aforesaid Will was forged and fabricated and further that the alleged Will being unprobated, the legatee under the Will cannot be regarded as the legal representative of the plaintiff. The defendants asserted that there was no legal representative, of the deceased sole plaintiff and, therefore, the suit was fit to be dismissed for non-prosecution.

3. It appears that during the course of hearing of that application for substitution, a photostat copy of the aforesaid alleged Will was produced and the application for substitution was resisted mainly on the ground that the Will being unprobated, the alleged legatee under the said Will could not be recognised as the legal representative.

4. The learned Subordinate Judge in seisin of the case, overruled the objection and directed substitution of the Opposite Party. The defendants have moved this Court in revision against the aforesaid order of substitution.

5. The sole point raised in this revision petition is that in view of the provisions of Sec.213 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 , as neither any probate, nor letters of administration with the Will or with a copy of the Will annexed has been granted no right to be impleaded as a legal representative could be established and that, when the right to be impleaded as a legal representative was under challenge, the court below had no jurisdiction to recognise the Opposite Party as the legal representative of the deceased plaintiff.

6. In my opinion, the contention, though attractive, is unsound and must be rejected.

7. Under the terms of the Will propounded by the Opposite Party, the Opposite Party is the sole legatee or, that is to say the universal legatee, or the deceased. Though, at one point, it was faintly argued that the question that the Will was not genuine had not been decided by the court below, this plea was not really taken in the revision application, and was not pressed. We must, therefore, proceed, for the purposes of this case, on the footing that the Opposite Party is the universal legatee under the Will of the deceased plaintiff. It has been held in Andhra Bank Limited V/s. R. Srinivasan, (AIR 1962 SC 232), that the expression legal representative in S.211 of the C.P.C. includes even those legatees, who obtained only a part of the estate of the deceased under a Will. If such a legatee can and, must be, regarded in view of the aforesaid decision, as the legal representative, it cannot be doubted that a universal legatee must be regarded, as held by the Madras High Court in the case of Subba Naidu V/s. Kannia Naidu, (AIR 1950 Mad 482), as the legal representative of the deceased testator.

8. The only question for decision is whether Sec.213 of the Indian Succession Act, 1925 (hereinafter called the Act), debars a Court from recognising and impleading a legatee as a legal representative until a probate or letters of administration with the Will or a copy of the Will annexed had been obtained in respect of the Will under which he claims.

9. Sec.213 of the Act, so far