- (1.) This is a defendant s appeal. The plaintiff having failed in an objection under Order 21, Rule 58, Civil P.C., sued for a declaration that a certain house belonged to her and was not liable to be sold in execution of decree No. 303 of 1919 of a Court at Delhi which had been obtained by the defendant appellant against the plaintiff-respondent s husband the plaintiff pleaded that the house in question had been sold to her on 18th November 1921 in lieu of her dower debt, which amounted to Rs. 2,000. The defence was that the sale deed was fictitious, that it bad been executed with a, view to defraud the creditors of the plaintiff s husband and that the plaintiff was not owner of the said house.
(2.) The trial Court (the Munsif of Aligarh) dismissed the suit finding that the marriage between the plaintiff and her alleged husband, defendant 2, was not proved, that no dower debt was proved and that the transfer was a fictitious and collusive transaction. The lower appellate Court has reversed the finding of the first Court. The learned Subordinate Judge finds that the marriage is proved and that there was a dower debt of Rs. 2,000 due from defendant. He finds that the husband may have intended to defraud his other creditors but that his wife was not at fault and that she took the property in good faith. He has ordered that the house be sold subject to a charge for the plaintiff s dower debt.
(3.) The learned Subordinate Judge has remarked that "Law presumes the dower to be prompt unless it is proved to be deferred." This presumption of law is challenged before us and we have to see whether it is correct or not. In Macnaghten s Mahomedan Law Section 22 it is laid down that: Where it may not have been expressed whether the payment of the dower is to be prompt or deferred, it must be held that the whole is due on demand.;