Judgment

SUBBA RAO, J. : This appeal by special leave is preferred against the judgment of a single Judge of the Patna High Court. The facts that gave rise to this appeal may be briefly stated. To appreciate the finding of the various courts and the contentions of the parties, the following genealogy will be useful.

The case of the plaintiff, who is the widow of Rameshwar Rai, is that her husband and Jangbahadur, defendant 1, effected a partition of the family property in or about 1924, that after the partition he was in exclusive possession of the property that fell to his share, that he died in the year 1930, that thereafter she and her mother-in-law continued to be in possession of the said property, that her mother-in-law died in 1938, that the first defendant asked her and her mother-in-law to execute a power of attorney in his favour, that they being pardahnashin ladies executed a document in his favour on August 24, 1935, believing it to be a power of attorney, that subsequently they came to known that it was a maintenance deed containing false recitals to the effect that there was no separation and that the property was joint family property. They also alleged in the plaint t