Sir Lionel Leach—The parties in this appeal are Dadra Rajputs, an agricultural tribe of the Montgomery District of the Punjab. The appeal arises out of a suit brought by the appellants in the Court of the Sub-ordinate Judge, Montgomery, challenging the validity of a deed of gift, executed on 17th December 1938, by Mt. Rajan, defendant I, in favour of her grandson defendant 2, who is the respondent in the appeal.

2. Defendant I, is the widow of one Amira, who died in or about the year 1913. The respondent is the son of a daughter of Amira and defendant I. On the execution of the deed of gift the respondent applied for mutation of names in the records kept by the land revenue authorities, but the Assistant Collector refused the application on the ground that,

"a female has, tinder no circumstances, a right to alienate property by sale or by way of charity under a will, oral or in writing;

and his decision was upheld by the Collector on appeal. Thereupon the respondent filed a suit in the Court of the Subordinate Judge, Montgomery, for a decree for the possession of the land. The only defendant was the donor and on 9th November 1939, with her consent, the Court passed a decree in the terms of the prayer in the plaint.

3. Two days later the appellants, who are collateral members of the respondents family, filed in the Sub-ordinate Judges Court the suit which has given rise to this appeal. The appellants pleaded that the land was ancestral, that the gift of it to the respondent was contrary to custom, that the mutation of names had been rightly refused and that the respondent had obtained by fraud the decree passed in his favour on 9th November 1939. They asked for a decree declaring that the deed of gift was null and void as against them and, therefore, did not affect their reversionary rights. The respondent filed a written statement, in which he denied that the land was ancestral. He alleged that the parties were governed by Mahomedan law, under which there were no restrictions on the donors powers of alienation, that the revenue officers had erred in refusing mutation of names and that the decree in the previous suit was good. In a separate written statement the donor supported the respondents case.

4. After the evidence had been closed and the case had been adjourned for the hearing of the arguments appellant I applied for leave to file certified copies of two extracts from public records, which were said to have bearing on the question whether the land was ancestral. O. 13, R. 1. C. P. C, requires the parties or their pleaders to produce at the first hearing of suit all documentary evidence on which they intend to rely, and R. 2 provides1 that no documentary evidence in the possession or power of party, which should have been, but has not been, produced in accordance with the requirements of R. 1, shall be received at any subsequent stage of the proceedings, unless good cause is shown to the satisfaction of the Court for its non-production. The Court receiving such evidence must record the reasons for so doing. The Subordinate Judge rejected the application on the ground that it was no stage to accept additional evidence when the defendant had closed his rebuttal and the case had been adjourned for the hearing of arguments.

5. In his judgment which was delivered later, the Subordinate Judge held that the appellants, had failed to prove the custom alleged by which a widow could not give her deceased husbands property to her daughters son, that the land was not ancestral, that in the absence of custom Mahomedan law governed the case and that under such law the gift was valid. In accordance with these conclusions he dismissed the suit with costs. The appellants appealed to the District Court. In addition to chaleng-ing the findings of the Subordinate* Judge they said that he had erred in refusing to admit the further evidence. The District Judge held that the Subordinate Judge was perfectly justified in refusing to admit