- (1.) THIS is a second appeal by the plaintiff Mst. Gulab Kunwar in a suit for arrears of rent and ejectment. My order dated the 7th January, 1955, shall form part of this judgment. 2. The facts out of which this appeal arises have been narrated at length in that order and need not be repeated fully. It is enough to state that the plaintiff's case was that Jethmal, father of the defendant respondent, had taken the suit shop on rent from the plaintiff by a rent-note dated the 22nd February, 1932, the rent settled being Rs. 5/p. m. After Jethmal's death, his son, who is the defendant respondent, continued to pay the rent for some time but thereafter failed to pay it with the result that the plaintiff gave him a notice on the 25th June, 1946, asking him to quit within seven days of the receipt of the notice and in default to be liable to pay rent at an enhanced rate of Rs. 20/- per mensem. The defendant did not comply with the notice and, therefore, the plaintiff brought the suit, out of which this appeal arises, on the 17th December, 1946. The defendant contested the suit on all possible pleas and I have already disposed of all of them except one by my order dated the 7th January, 1955. I have held that there can be no question at this stage as to the execution of the rent-note by the defendant's father, which has been held by the two courts to have been so executed; that the rent-note covered not only the shop on the ground floor but the malia or the room on the roof thereof and the defendant was a defaulter having not paid rent from 17th Jan. , 1946 to 17th Dec. , 1946, and, was, therefore liable to be evicted. It has also been held by me that the plaintiff could claim enhanced rent at the rate of Rs. 12/8/-per mensem from the date of the notice but no more. The main question which now remains to deal with and which had prevailed with the lower appellate court resulting in the dismissal of the plaintiff's suit is whether the plaintiff had any locus standi to bring this suit as she had admittedly taken one Misrilal in adoption to her husband before the suit was filed. For the reasons which I have stated at length in my earlier order and which it is entirely unnecessary to re-iterate, I considered it necessary to frame a specific issue on this question and remitted it to the trial court for a finding thereon. That issue was as follows Whether the plaintiff Mst. Gulab Kunwar was divested of her right as regards the suit property by force of the adoption made by her of Misrilal, and whether she had no right to bring the present suit? The finding of the trial court is that Mst. Gulab Kunwar has not been divested of her right with respect to the suit property on account of the adoption of Misrilal and that the had a right to bring this suit. The question for determination, therefore, is whether this finding is correct. Learned counsel for the respondent tenant has strenuously opposed it and his contention is that the deed of adoption executed by Mst. Gulab Kunwar in favour of his adopted son Misrilal and by which the rights of the latter were curtailed was entirely of no effect in so far as the rights of the adopted son were diminished by it. THIS brings me to a consideration of the terms of the deed of adoption. In the introductory part of the deed Mst. Gulab Kunwar stated that she was an old woman of 61 years of age and that she had no son and that she was desirous of continuing the line of her deceased husband by an adoption and, therefore, she was taking Misrilal son of Milap Chand, who was a relation of her, in adoption to her husband. The lady then went on to state that Misrilal would thenceforward be the malik of the entire estate of her husband, movable and immovable, and that Misrilal would do business in the name of Milapchand and that Misrilal would have all the rights of a born son in the new family. If the adop-tion-deed had ended here, there would have been no trouble whatsoever as to the import of this instrument. But Mst. Gulab Kunwar was obviously anxious to safeguard her own rights in her old age and she deed went on further like this,
(2.) VKSJ esjs ifr dh dqy leifr eky eudwyk o xsjeudwyk tk;nkn ij esjh ftunxh rd rks esjk gh ekydkuk gd jgsxk VKSJ esa tl tkrjk /kjeiqu oxsjk tks dqn Hkh islk vpns dk;z esa yxkus esa viuh ejth dk mi;ksx dke esa ykaxh ftlls ph: feljhyky fdlh fdle dk mtj dj. k ikosxk ugha VKSJ gj odr esjs gqde esa jgsxk VKSJ esjs lks cjl iwxus ds ckn dqy leifr eky eudwyk o xsj eudwyk tk;nkn o ysu nsudk ehy ekydkuk gd ph: feljhyky dk gksxka** In other words, the adoptive mother said that so long as she was alive, she would continue to remain the malik of the entire estate of her husband and that she would be free to spend money on charity and other good objects according to her own desire, and Misrilal would have no right to object to this, and after her death the latter would become a full owner (dk fey ekfyd) of the estate. This last-mentioned condition is obviously inconsistent with what Mst. Gulab Kunwar has stated in the earlier part of the deed and introduces therein a substantial curtailment of the rights of the adopted son. The latter signed the deed apparently in token of his consent to the terms thereof. It is common ground between the parties that Misrilal was a major at the time and was about 30 years of age, The important question to decide in these circumstance is what is the true meaning of this deed and whether the limitation as regards the rights of the adopted son contained therein was lawful. The contention of learned counsel for the respondent is that the deed, according to its terms, gave an absolute estate to the adoptive mother and reduced the rights of the adopted son merely to a shadow to whatever might or might not remain after the death of the widow and, therefore, was wholly repugnant to the fundamental principles of adoption as known in the Hindu Law Learned counsel relied in support of his contention on Kishnamurthi vs. Krishna-murthi (1) and the passage at page 146 of that judgment where their Lordships of the Privy Council observed that "as soon, however, as the arrange-' ments go beyond that, i. e. , either give the widow property absolutely or give the property to strangers, they think no custom as to this has been proved to exist and that such arrangements are against the radical view of the Hindu law. " Before dealing with this case and its precise effect on and applicability to the facts of the case in hand, the primary question for consideration is whether the deed in this case gave or had the effect or giving an absolute estate to the adoptive mother. Now it is a cardinal principle of interpretation of documents that the proper way to construe a document is to read it as whole and to give each component part thereof due emphasis and attention and thereby ascertain the true intention of the parties to it. I would further point out that where a document contains two sets of recitals therein, which are not absolutely consistent with each other, there is yet another rule which must be borne in mind and that is that in such a case we must give effect to every part of the document if we can and arrive at a harmonious result (See Mathu vs. Meenakshisundaram Applying these principles of construction to the deed before us, I have come to the conclusion that the intention of the parties was not to give an absolute estate to the adoptive widow but to reserve a life interest in her favour as regards her husband's property and postpone the rights of the adopted son during her life time. It is only by reading the document in this way that it is possible to give effect to it as a whole and to every component part thereof without doing any violence to or sacrificing the one part of it for the sake of the other. Mst. Gulab Kanwar was at the time of adoption old, being 61 years of age, and all though she was anxious to continue the line of her deceased husband by taking some-one in adoption, she was naturally equally anxious to reserve adequate advantage for herself for her life-time. I am not prepared to agree with the contention raised on behalf of the defendant respondent that this interest was absolute and left nothing for the adopted son. The first and the last part of the document clearly recited that Misrilal was to be the owner of the entire estate left by the deceased Milapchand But this estate was to be postponed in favour or Mst, Gulabkanwar, the adoptive mother, during her life-time. It is also significant in this connection that the language of this deed would have been radically different if the intention of the parties had been to give an absolute estate in favour of the widow, for I have no doubt that in that case the deed would have certainly not failed to mention that the widow would have every right to alienate the suit property and other properties in the hands of the widow by a gift or mortgage or sale without any restriction whatsover. It is not questioned before me that the suit property was ancestral and all that the widow Mst. Gulab Kunwar acquired in respect of it was a widow's estate, and it seems to me to be going too far to hold that by this document either the widow or the adopted son wanted to enlarge the estate in her hands by converting the widow's estate into an absolute estate. The limiting clause in the deed contains the expression "meri Zindgi Tak" that is, during my life time and that again points in the direction of the reservation of a life estate in her favour or the postponement of the adopted son's estate for the life-time of the adoptive mother. Fortunately in the present case we have both the adoptive mother and the adopted son living, and both of them have given sworn testimony that this was the only intention and no other. There is no counteracting evidence, and not a single circumstance is forthcoming on this record, not was there even an attempt on the part of the defendant to elicit that the manner in which the widow has dealt with her husband's property has been contrary to this intention. I have no hesitation, therefore, in coming to the conclusion that the contention of learned counsel for the defendant that by the terms of the deed, the widow had given to hereself an absolute estate and thereby completely cut down the rights of the adopted son to a mere nothing is incorrect and must be repelled. In this view of the matter, it seems to me that there is no scope for the suggestion that the adoption made in this case was contrary to the fundamental principle of the Hindu law of adoption as administered at this date and I may at once state that it is in no manner hit by the ruling of theirlordships in Krishnamurthi's case cite above 3. Be that as it may, the next important question to consider is whether an agreement of this nature is valid in law. It may be pointed out that learned counsel has relied on Krishnamurthi's case in support of his contention on the hypothesis that the deed of adoption in this case gave to the adoptive mother an absolute estate; but when the finding is that the estate taken by the adoptive mother was merely a widow's estate, Krishnamurthi's case instead of helping the respondent helps the appellants In that case the contest was between a minor adopted son and certain persons who were outsiders and to whom the adoptive father had given some benefits, apart from some benefit to his wife for her life-time, and the natural father of the adopted son had agreed to those benefits being given. Their Lordships of the Privy Council made an exhaustive review of the case law bearing on the subject and eventually came to the conclusion, which is sufficient for our present purposes, that there was a consensus of decisions according to which an agreement made at the time of adoption regulating the right of the widow as against the adopted son and reserving a benefit in her favour even to the extent of the life interest in the whole property would not be incompatible with his position as a son, and their Lordships based their conclusion on the ground that whatever may be the position according to the strict Hindu law, custom has sanctioned such an arrangement. Their Lordships further pointed out that where the agreements went beyond that, that is, either gave the widow property absolutely or gave the property to strangers, that would be against the radical view of the Hindu law and that no custom in favour of such agreements was shown to have existed. As already pointed out, the agreement agreed to in this case on behalf of the minor adopted son in favour of the mother in the adoptive family was by his natural father. A case like the present where the agreement has been reached between the adoptive mother and the adopted son who is suit juris logically stands on a much stronger footing Such a case arose in Kashibai vs. Tatya Genu There a Hindu widow executed two documents by one of which she adopted the defendant who was of full age and by the other which was called a will she gave certain property to her grand daughter the plaintiff. The properties specified in the will were not included in the adoption deed and the will was attested by the adopted son and his brother and his father. In a suit by the plaintiff to recover the property bequeathed to her form the alienees of the defendant, the contention was raised that the widow had no power to make an absolute disposition in favour of the plaintiff. It was held that the two deeds, taken with the circumstances attending their execution, constituted a family arrangement, and that the attestation of the will by the defendant, who was an adult, and his acquiescence in the arrangement precluded him from impeaching the bequest to the plaintiff. This case was apparently not noticed by their Lordships of the Privy Council in Krishnamurthi's case (1) as they were there dealing with the validity of agreements prior to or contemporaneous with the adoptions of minors curtailing their rights. There is a subsequent decision of the Bombay High Court in Pandurang vs. Narmadadi (4) to which reference may next be made. In that case as adopted son who was of full age entered into some arrangement as to the extent of his interest in the property of the adoptive father by which he agreed to accept only to moiety and the other moiety was to go to the daughter of the adoptive father's brother and her husband. It was found that at the time of the adoption, the adoptive father and his brother were joint. It was held, relying on Kashibai's case referred to above, that the adopted son was bound by the agreement. Both these cases belong to a category where benefits given by the ante adoption agreements went to outsiders and we have the decision of their Lordships of the Privy Counsel that if such agreements were made in the case of minor adopted sons even with the consent of their natural guardian, such an arrangement would be illegal. It is a serious question and by no means easy whether agreements of this type would be valid in the case of a major adopted son. The Bombay High Court has held in the two decisions cited above that these would be valid. But it is really unnecessary to pursue the matter further so far as the purposes of the present case are concerned because here the agreement has been made by a major son with his adoptive mother and the benefit of the agreement was to go to the mother alone and to no outsider. Such an agreement would be valid even in the case of a minor son if made with the consent of his natural guardian on the authority of Krishnamurthi's case a fortiori it must be held to be valid in the case of a major son. I, therefore, hold that the limitation by which the rights of the adopted son were postponed in favour of the adoptive mother for her life time, as contained in the deed of adoption was valid. The result is that Mst. Gulab Kunwar continued to be the owner of this property so long as she was alive and was not divested of her light in relation thereto by virtue of the adoption of Misrilal and, therefore, she was fully competent to bring the present suit. 4. This appeal, therefore, must be al-lower and the judgment of the lower appellate court set aside. The plaintiff will have a decree for ejectment. She will also be entitled to a sum of Rs. 27/10/8 as arrears of rent from 17th January, 1946 to 1st July, 1946 at the rate of Rs. 5/- p. m. and a further sum of Rs. 69/2/8 from 2nd July, 1946 to 17th December, 1946, at the enhanced rate of Rs. 12/8/- p. m. and also rent at the rate of Rs. 12/8- per mensem from the date of the suit to the date of delivery of possession. The respondent shall bear the costs of the plaintiff appellant throughout according to her success. .;