1956 Present: Basnayake, C.J., and Pulle, J.

DAYANGANIE and another, Appellants, and SOMAWATHIE
and another, Respondents

S.C. 203-D.C. (Inty.) Avissawella LA/279

Kandyan Law-Adoption-Inference from facts and circumstances-Oral public declaration not essential-Kandyan Law Declaration and Amendment Ordinance, No. 39 of 1938, s. 7.

Evidence of a public declaration by the adoptive parent on a formal occasion that a particular child was adopted for the purpose of inheriting his estate is not necessary in order to prove the fact of adoption of an heir under the Kandyan Law (prior to the commencement of the Kandyan Law Declaration and Amendment Ordinance). All that is needed is reliable, clear and unmistakable evidence in whatever form of the adoptive parent's intention to make the foster child his heir.

Tikiri Banda v. Loku Banda (1905) 2 Bal. R. 144 and Tikiri Kumarihamy v. Punchi Banda (1901) 2 Browne 299, not followed.

APPEAL from an order of the District Court, Avissawella.

Cyril E. S. Perera, Q.C., with H. W. Jayewardene, Q.C., T. B. Dissanayake and P. Ranasinghe, for 2nd and 3rd Defendant-Appellants.

H. V. Perera, Q.C., with N.