JUDGMENT

1. This second civil appeal arises out of a suit brought by reversioners to recover possession of a share of 121 bighas 10 biswas in what was formerly patti Ganga Din Singh, but which now corresponds to the entire mahal Bhikham Singh of village Khasparya. The property was sold by two widows, Mt. Bhoila and Mt. Radha, on 1st July 1876, to Ganesh Singh, father-in law of the first and father of the second defendant. The suit was decreed by the learned Assistant Civil Judge in favour of three out of the six plaintiffs, and the learned District Judge of Barabanki upheld the decree in first appeal. The defendants have preferred a second appeal. Mt. Bhoila was the widow of a man named Bhikari Singh. The date of his death is not known, but it must have been in or before the year 1874. Mt. Bhoila herself died in 1877. Mt. Radha was the widow of a man named Ganga Din Singh, who died issueless either in 1874 or in 1875, sometime after the death of Bhikari Singh. Mt. Radha survived until 18th December 1934. Bhikari Singh and Ganga Din Singh were first cousins and they had two other first cousins named Mewa Singh and Baryar Singh, The pedigree is shown below:

TABLE

2. It is not disputed that the family was originally a joint Hindu family, and that Baryar Singh separated from the other members and took his share of the joint family property some time before 1874. Nor is it disputed that the shares of the three other members of the family, Mewa Singh, Bhikari Singh and Ganga Din Singh in the remaining property were recorded as being one-third each. Nevertheless," it was alleged in the plaint that they remained joint, and that Ganga Din Singh obtained the whole share of 121 bighas 10 biswas in suit by survivorship, Mewa Singh and Bhikari Singh having predeceased him and leaving no issue. It has, however, been found as a fact that they separated, in which case Ganga Din Singh could not have obtained the property by survivorship, nor could he have obtained the whole of it by succession for his brother Baryar Singh survived him. We do not know the date of Mewa Singh's death and the par. ties are not in agreement on the point. Ganga Din Singh applied to have the entry in respect of one third of the property in Mewa Singh's name expunged on the ground of his congenital blindness, but this application appears to have been rejected. It seems clear, however, that his death must have occurred very shortly after that of Ganga Din Singh, if not before. His share was eventually recorded in the names of Mt. Bhoila and Mt. Radha.

3. Bhikari Singh's one-third share was recorded in the name of his widow, Mt. Bhoila, but the plaintiffs' case was that this was done only for her consolation. Had the family been joint at the date of Bhikari Singh's death his share should have devolved on Mewa Singh and Ganga Din Singh. It eventually came with the other shares to be recorded in the names of the two widows Mt. Bhoila and Mt. Radha, though a note was made in 1879, when at a revenue partition a chitthi to this effect was prepared, that Ganesh Singh was the vendee of the whole share of 121 bighas 10 biswas. So far as Mt. Bhoila was concerned the entry made in 1879 was meaningless, as she had died two years before. At the time of the sale on 1st July 1876, however, the whole property would appear to have been entered in the names of the two widows.

4. There is reason to think that Ganga Din Singh considered himself entitled to the whole property upon the death of his cousins Mewa Singh and Bhikari Singh, for on 21st July 1874 he executed a mortgage in which it is recited that he is in enjoyment of the whole area. The District Judge has referred to this mortgage as a mortgage of the entire area of 121 bighas 10 biswas, but actually it was a mortgage of only some 8 bighas. This does not, however, affect the view taken by the District Judge so far as it is based on the fact that Ganga Din Singh professed to own the entire area. Another reason for thinking that Mt.