The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation and application of the Evidence Act, specifically Sections 11, 13, and 21, in determining the admissibility and relevance of a document in proving a family settlement.

Horwill, J.

1. The questions arising in this second appeal are whether Ex. 7 is a relevant document rightly admitted in evidence by the. lower Courts and whether the lower appellate Court was right in, admitting Ex. 14 series to show that Ex. 7 was a genuine document. The trial Court, because the wording of Ex. 7 did not accord very well with its other findings and because it did not bear the postal; seal of the Nizams State from which it purported to have been sent, declared it to be a spurious document. The reasons given by the District Munsif for declaring it spurious were very inadequate and on the face of the document it bears its own proof of genuineness. The lower appellate Court would therefore have failed in its duty if it had not admitted other letters issued from the Nizams State to show that such letters do not necessarily bear the Hydera bad State seal. The defendants had no reason to believe that the genuineness of Ex. 7 would be doubted and they could not therefore have been expected to come to the Court armed with a number of other letters from the Hyderabad State to meet some objections of the Court which they could not possibly have foreseen. It is further objected that the lower appellate Court should have given the present appellant an opportunity of adducing counter evidence. In the nature of the case there could hardly be any counter evidence on the point; but there is nothing on the record to show that any request was made to the appellate Court to permit the plaintiff to adduce counter evidence; and I have no doubt that the Court would have given an opportunity to adduce further evidence had the request been made.

2. The main point in issue in the Courts below was whether there was a family settlement which was binding oh the plaintiff. Ex. 7 is a letter written by defendant 1 to his wife making reference to a settlement and asking her to do certain acts to forward the settlement, such as by telling his uncle that he would execute a mortgage deed in his favour. It is argued on behalf of the defendants that such a document would be admissible Under Sections 11, 13 and 21, Evidence Act. Section 11 merely explains that certain kinds of evidence are relevant although they do not bear directly on the facts in issue. There can be no doubt of the relevancy of the fact in relation to which the statement in Ex. 7 was made; but that does not in itself make the statement relevant; for the admissibility of statements by parties (defined as admissions) is governed by Section 21. Nor can the statement be admissible Under Section 13, which relates to an assertion of a right or custom. A recital in a friendly letter is neither of these. The statement would be admissible Under Section 21 only if it is a statement that would be admissible by a dead person Under Section 32(2) or Section 32(3). Although the statement contains certain admissions of liability, yet such admissions are only parts of a larger statement asserting a settlement. Reading the document as a whole, the statement is not a mere admission of liability but an assertion of the existence of a settlement such as is made by the defendants in this case. I do not consider therefore that Section 32(3) applies. The point more difficult to decide is whether Section 32(2) will make the statement admissible. Woodroffe and Ameer Ali and Nrisinhadas Basu in their books on Evidence, in discussing the meaning of the words "course of business" in Section 32(2) repeat word for word the expressions used by Candy, J. in Ningawa v. Bharmappa (1899) 23 Bom 63:

This exception to the general rule against hearsay extends only to statements made during the course not of any particular transaction of an exceptional kind, such as the execution of a deed of mortgage, but of business or professional employment in which the declarant was ordinarily or habitually engaged.

3. They consider it to be such business as would be conducted by a man of business, i.e., by a man habitually e