A secular sanyasi is not an anathema to tradition. A sanyasi could also own property and the chela to a sanyasi is verily the legal heir to succeed to the property.

K. KANNAN J.

I. Law involved

1. The point involved in the second appeal is whether a person, who has taken to Sanyas leaves his blood relations as heirs or the spiritual lineage of a Chela to take right in the property left behind by the Sanyasi.

II. Geneology – Basis for claim of the respective parties

2. The plaintiff’s suit was dismissed by the trial Court and the Appellate Court. The plaintiff filed the suit for recovery of possession of the property in the hands of the 1st defendant, who admittedly claimed to be a Chela of Gokal Chand @ Kesar Bharti. The genealogy as brought through the pleading is reproduced:-

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Impleaded as LRs on the basis of Will dated 12.07.2000

3. Gokal Chand @ Kesar Bharti died in the year 1976 and the suit had been filed by the plaintiff Kundan Lal for the relief of possession from the hands of the 1st defendant. The 1st defendant has himself died and certain registered Trusts represented through trustees, who claim to be in possession of the properties have been brought on record. There seems to be rival contentions amongst the representatives of the 1st defendant themselves but I will not take them as relevant for consideration in this case, for it will be a matter for adjudication amongst the contesting respondents to resolve the issue by independent proceedings. The application for impleadment of parties have been allowed specifically reserving to them the right to contend as to who shall be entitled to manage the properties. The point for consideration in this second appeal is of whether the plaintiff could claim himself to be the legal heir of the deceased Gokal Chand @ Kesar Bharti as an agnate of the deceased or whether the property would go to the hands of the 1st defendant, who claimed to be his Chela.

III. Findings of Courts below-their raison d’tre

4. During the course of trial, the plaintiff introduced rather a strange contention that Kesar Bharti had married before partition in the place now in Pakistan and had even a child who was later anointed as Kishan Bharti, who was the 1st defendant. The attempt of the plaintiff was to show that Gokal Chand was not a Sanyasi attached to any religious order whose death could deviate succession from blood relations. The trial Court found on a matter of fact that the deceased Kesar Bharti was a Sanyasi, who renounced the world and the 1st defendant had also been anointed as his Chela by appropriate religious ceremonies. Evidence of villagers and persons connected with the 1st defendant had been examined and photographs had also been filed to show that there had been a Pagri ceremony and the assumption of the religious office was accompanied with all religious rituals. The trial Court also reasoned that the plaintiff’s contention that Gokal Chand had married and the st defendant, who was actually his own son, was actually destructive to the plaintiff’s own case, for if he had been married and the 1st defendant was his son then the plaintiff could not even treat himself as a legal heir to stake a claim in the property. The Appellate Court affirmed all the findings.

IV. Substantial questions of law, as framed

5. On the basis of pleadings and findings brought through the judgment, following questions of law have been framed:-

(i) Whether after holding on issue No.3 that the suit property was the self acquired property of Kesar Bharti, the Courts below could still hold that defendant No.1 was entitled to inherit the same merely because he was the alleged chela of Kesar Bharti?

(ii) Whether in the absence of evidence on the record that Kesar Bharti had dedicated his self acquired property to the religious sect, the Courts below could hold his alleged chela to be entitled to the same?

(iii) Whether the initiation of Kesar Bharti into the religious sect has been proved in accordance with law?

(iv) Whether in the absence of a Will, the property would devolve on the legal heirs as per the provisions of the Hind