The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of the term 'substantial question of law' and its application in determining the eligibility for leave to appeal.

1. The defendant - applicant, Ramlal, has applied for leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council against the judgment and decree of this Court, dated 1st April 1927, in Ramlal v. Indraraj Singh,1927 AIR(Nag) 273.

2. The only question involved in the said judgment was as to whether the gift of mouza Ekodi granted to Harpriabai was one for maintenance only, or was an absolute one. The judgment of this Court affirmed the judgment of the Court below and held that the said grant was merely a maintenance one to Harpriabai and her children. She admittedly had no heirs and, therefore, the village was held to have rightly reverted to the plaintiff-non-applicant. It is not disputed that the value of the subject-matter in dispute both in the Court of first instance and of appeal to His Majesty in Council is above Rs. 10,000. What the defendant-applicant, therefore, has to establish before leave to appeal can be granted, is that a substantial question of law is involved in the case. There has been considerable difference of judicial opinion as1 to the meaning of the term ''substantial question of law'' in Section 110, Civil PC. One school of opinion has been to the effect that the said phrase implies a substantial question of law of general importance and not merely one of substantial importance as between the parties to the suit : cf. Bishambhar Nath v. Muhammad Ubaid Ullah Khan, 1927 AIR(PC) 110. This matter has now been set at rest by the decision of their Lordships of the Privy Council in Raghunath Prasad Singh v. Deputy Commissioner of Partabgarh, 1927 AIR(PC) 110. Their Lordships have therein definitely laid down that the term ''substantial question of law'' merely means such a question as between the parties in the case involved.

3. It remains, therefore, to decide whether, in the circumstances of the present case, suchga aubstantial question of law can be said to be outstanding. The learned Counsel for the defendant-applicant has pointed out that the evidence, on which the Bench of this Court came to the conclusions it did, fell into five sections : (1) certain oral evidence; (2) a will (Ex. D 9); (3) certain evidence of a practice in this zamindari of making provision for unmarried daughters and female relatives by giving them a grant of the profits of a village for maintenance; (i) a statement made by Harpriabai herself; and (5) certain settlement entries referred to in para. 10 of the judgment of this Court.

4. The oral evidence produced by the defendant and by the plaintiff alike was held by the Bench to be unconvincing. Mr. Bose has urged that the remaining evidence is almost wholly documentary, so that our decision depended upon the right construction of documents. He cites a remark of their Lordships of the Privy Council in Fateh Chand v. Kishan Kimwar, 1912 34 ILR(PC) 579 at p. 585:

The right construction of documents is a question of law which Judges in second appeals are not, by Sections 584 and 584, Civil P.C., precluded from considering by any finding of a lower appellate Court based upon such documents.

5. But the construction of the passage relied on in the will is of a very minor importance in the present case and forms only one of the number of bases on which our findings stand: and it cannot, in our opinion, be maintained that there is any valid doubt regarding the meaning of Mt. Harpriabai's statements or of the correct interpretation of the settlement entries. We do not consider then, that there is any question regarding the right construction of a document which is of substantial importance as between the parties to the suit.

6. It is next urged that as we have arrived at a decision on a question of fact namely whether the grant was one for Mt. Harpriabai's life only or in perpetuity by drawing inferences from certain facts which we held to be proved, our findings involve a question of law. In support of this-contention, the learned counsel refers us to a number of ''rulings'' In Nafar Cha