SHARAD MANOHAR - (1.) Though this is an appeal by both original defendants Nos. 2 and 7 against the concurrent finding of both the Courts below invalidating the Gift Deed in favour of original defendant No. 7. Two very neat and substantial questions of law arise herein and decision on either of them in favour of the appellants would be enough to strengthen the hands of this Court to allow this appeal by doing which this Court will be doing real and substantial justice between the parties.
(2.) The few necessary facts giving rise to the two questions are as follows : The suit property is a house situate at Kolhapur. There is no dispute that before the Gift Deed to which reference will be presently made, it belonged to one Kutubuddin Maner. He had four sons, the plaintiff and defendants Nos. 2 to 4, and two daughters, defendants Nos. 5 and 6. Defendant No. 7 is the son of defendant No. 2, that is to say, the grand - son of Kutubuddin. It is not seriously disputed that the old man Kutubuddin had some love and affection for his grand son, defendant No. 7, who was very much of a minor at the particular time. On 3rd June, 1972, therefore, Kutubuddin executed a Registered Gift Deed in favour of his minor grand son, defendant No. 7. By the Gift Deed, the donor left no room for doubt that he had completely washed his hands off the suit house as from the date of the gift. But, in the Gift Deed, there was an averment made as follows : [***] Translated into English, this means that the donor had voluntarily made a gift of the property in the condition in which it existed at that time and that the same was accepted by the donees mother .
(3.) It is possible to hold that there is some ambiguity about this expression "accepted", viz, whether the acceptance was in respect of the gift or was in respect of the possession of the property. The further portion of the Marathi document means that as per the Gift Deed, the minor had become absolute owner of the gifted property. He was given all the right to have his name transferred in the Government Khatas and responsibility of payment of Municipal Taxes etc., was put upon him. It further means that the donor had unequivocally declared that he had ceased to have any interest in the suit property as from that date. In other words, he had completely washed his hands off it so far as the gifted property was concerned.;