Mootham, J. - (1.) In this case the petitioner seeks to obtain probate of the draft of a document which is said to have been the last will of Lydia Isabel Myrtle Higgins, the document itself having been lost or destroyed after the testator's death. Caveats have been entered by A. J Fanthome, an advocate of this Court and his wife Mrs. Phyllis Fanthome, and a preliminary issue has been framed as to whether the caveators have any locus standi to contest this petition. That is the issue which I now have to decide.
(2.) The late Mrs. Higgins had a sister, Miss C. V. Willson, who died on 7-11-1945, leaving a will of which the first caveator was the executor and the second caveator the principal beneficiary. Probate of this will was granted to the first caveator on 22-2-1947. Mrs. Higgins died on 15-6-1918. The caveators contend that they are entitled to oppose the present petition on the ground that they have an interest in the estate of the late Mrs. Higgins.
(3.) The dispute centres round a house in Havelook Road, Lucknow, and thirty preferential shares in the Allahabad Bank Limited. These two items of property are included in Annexure A to the present petition as a part of the property of which Mrs. Higgins died possessed, and the same two items were included in the property of which it was said that her sister Miss Wilson died pos-sessed. The case for the caveators is that the house in Havelock Eoad belonged to Miss Wilson subject to a life interest in favour of Mrs. Higgins, and that consequently upon the death of Mrs. Higgins the house belonged exclusively to the estate of the late Miss Wilson. As regards the shares in the Allahabad Bank Limited learned counsel for the caveators says that those shares stood originally in the joint names of Mrs. Higgins and Miss Wilson. That may indeed prove to be true, but the contention of the caveators as set out in their written statement filed in this case is that they belonged to Miss Wilson alone and that Mrs. Higgins had no interest therein.;