The burden of proving an adoption rests on the person who asserts it, and the burden is a heavy one. An adoption results in changing the course of succession, depriving wives and daughters of their rights and transferring properties to comparative strangers or more remote relations. Therefore, the evidence to support it should be such that it is free from all suspicions of fraud and so consistent and probable as to leave no occasion for doubting its truth.

.1. This appeal is by the second claimant in L.A.C.P.No.30 of 1989, on the file of the Subordinate Judge, Sivaganga.

2. An area of 23 cents of land in Survey No.600/3-A was acquired by Government. Appellant as well as second respondent herein claimed right over the compensation amount.

3. Facts which have given rise to this Appeal may be summarized as follows:- The property originally belonged to one Chinnammal. Her husband’s name is Muthuraman. It is the case that Chinnammal has no issues, but she had a sister. That sister had a son, who is the father of appellant and second respondent. His name is Nallathambi. Second respondent is the only son of Nallathambi. While second respondent was about two years old, his mother died and thereafter Nallathambi married one Lakshmi through whom the appellant was born. As stated already, the property admittedly belonged to Chinnammal. She died sometime before 1965. Nallathambi also died sometime between 1975 and 1980.

4. In this case, the second respondent put forward a claim statement before the lower court contending that even while he was two years old, he was given in adoption to Chinnammal and he is the adopted son. It is his case that compensation amount had to be paid to him only.

5. As against the said claim, the appellant contended that Chinnammals legal heir can only be their father Nallathambi, and on his death, it devolved on second respondent, appellant and his second wife Lakshmi, i.e. her mother.

6. By the impugned judgment, the lower court found that Chinnammal has adopted the second respondent and, therefore, the entire amount of compensation must be paid to him. The correctness of the said decision is challenged in this appeal.

7. The only question to be considered in this Appeal, is whether the adoption pleaded by second respondent is true and whether the finding of the lower Court is correct.

.8. Adoption is not proved by any documentary evidence. The case put forward is that when the second respondent was about two years old, his father wanted another alliance. Therefore, he was given in adoption to Chinnammal. It is his case that thereafter he was brought up by Chinnammal. If the adoption is not proved, the natural heirs will be as contended by the appellant. The burden of proving the factum of adoption is entirely on the second respondent.

9. As early as in Kishori Lai v. MtChaltibau A.I.R. 1959 S.C. 504 their Lordships said that ‘As an adoption results in changing the course of succession, depriving wives and daughters of their rights and transferring properties to comparative strangers or more remote relations, it is necessary that the evidence to support it should be such that it is free from all suspicions of fraud and so consistent and probable as to leave no occasion for doubting its truth’. Their Lordships followed the earlier decisions of Privy Council in that regard.

.10. In Musammat Lai Kunwar v. Chiranji Lai, 37 LA 1, their Lordships of the Privy Council held that in a case of adoption, it is for the person alleging it, to prove the same, and the plaintiff having failed to discharge the onus of proving adoption, his case was dismissed. The said decision was followed in Diwakar Rao v. Chandan Lai Rao and others, A.I.R.l 916 PC 81 herein their Lordships followed still a very early decision rendered in Swatrugun Sutputty v. Sabitrady, where it was held thus:-

.“Although neither written acknowledgments nor the performance of any religious ceremonial are essential to the validity of adoptions, such acknowledgments are usually given, and such ceremonies observed, and notices given of the times when adoptions are to take place, in all families of distinction as those of Zamindars or opulent Brahmins, that wherever these have been omitted, it behaves this court to regard with extreme suspicion the proof offered in support of adoption. I would say, that in no case should the rights of wives and daughters be transferred to strangers, or mo