HIRA NAIKIN Vs. RADHA NAIKIN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this litigation the parties concerned are professional prostitutes of the class known as Naikins, and their relation is shown by the genealogy recorded in the judgment of the lower appellate Court. The plaintiff Radha sued to obtain by partition her half share in the properties belonging to the women Tana and Sundra. There is no dispute as to the plaintiff s right to a half share in Tana s property. The question is whether the plaintiff is entitled to a half share in Sundra s property. The second defendant Hira resists such a claim alleging that she herself was validly adopted as a daughter of Sundra, and is thus entitled to inherit Sundra s property; and in the alternative she relies upon the will of Sundra made in her favour.

(2.) The trial Court found substantially in the second defendant s favour. But that decree was materially modified on appeal by the learned First Class Subordinate Judge, and from his decree the present appeal is brought by the second defendant.

(3.) The first question raised in argument by Mr. Jayakar for the appellant was that the suit is time-barred, inasmuch as knowledge of Hira s adoption ought to be debited to the plaintiff as early as Sundra s will of the 22nd of November 1898. There is, however, no evidence upon the record from which the plaintiff can be affected with notice of the adoption prior to the 26th of February 1904, when Ex. 17, the plaintiff s own deposition, shows that the fact of the adoption had been brought to her attention. Reckoning from the 26th February 1904 the suit is well within time. The objection, therefore, as to limitation fails.