Kilambi Venkata Rangacharyulu vs Kilambi Gopalakrishnamacharyulu and Others

P. Chandrasekhara Sastry, J.—This appeal under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent is preferred against the judgment of Krishna Rao, J. in C. M. A. No. 340 of 1957. The facts of the case are as follows:

O. P. No. 46/57 was filed by the petitioner therein against three respondents to the O. P. under Sec. 62 of the Indian Lunacy Act (IV of 1912) praying to hold an inquisition for the purpose of ascertaining whether the 1st respondent in the O. P. Srimat Kilambi Venkata Raghavacharyulu is of unsound mind and to appoint a manager to the estate of the 1st respondent. The petitioner in the O. P. claimed to be an agnatic relation of the 1st respondent. According to the allegations in the O. P. the 1st respondent was married twice. The first wife having died in or about 1906, he married the sister of the second respondent. The petitioner was informed and believed the same to be true that the 1st respondent became a lunatic a short time before the death of his first wife or a very short time after her death and that he is incapable of managing his affairs; but it is admitted in the O. P. that the 1st respondent is capable of managing himself and is not dangerous to himself or to others.

It is further alleged that respondents 2 and 3 were managing the affairs of the 1st respondent and after the death of the second wife, respondents 2 and 3 were trying to mismanage the estate for their own benefit and therefore it is necessary that an inquisition should be directed and a manager shall be appointed to the estate of the first respondent. The petitioner in the O. P. claimed that he would be the next heir of the 1st respondent and would inherit the 1st respondent''s properties.

The application was numbered as O. P. 46/57 on 16-4-1957 and notices were ordered to be served for hearing on 26-4-1957. Meanwhile, i.e., on 23-4-1957, the 1st respondent himself filed a counter denying that he was never a lunatic and accepting, that he had allowed his wife to manage his properties because he was religious-minded. He contended that it was not necessary to appoint a manager to manage the estate and prayed that the application may be dismissed.

He also stated that he is an educated man and that he was 73 years old. He contended that the petitioner''s family and his family were not on good terms for a long time and that the petition was not a bona fide one. Respondents 2 and 3 also stated that the 1st respondent was not a lunatic and that he was capable of managing his own affairs.

It appears from the order of the learned District Judge that he directed the 1st respondent appeared before him and that the 1st respondent appeared before him on 27-4-1957. The learned District Judge interrogated him and found him to be a perfectly same person. The learned District Judge says in his order that the 1st respondent''s answers to his interrogation showed that the 1st respondent was 73 years of age and that he had studied up to B. A. Junior in the Arts College, Rajahmundry and that he was mentally sound and capable of managing his own properties. The learned District Judge also stated that the 1st respondent was attending the Court on all subsequent adjournments and that in spite of his being 73 years old, he is also physically fit and does not appear to be weak or senile. After interviewing the first respondent in the manner above mentioned and after satisfying himself that he is not a lunatic, the learned District Judge by his order dated 15-7-1957 dismissed the O. P. with costs of the 1st respondent.

In his order, the learned District Judge stated that he was thoroughly satisfied after examining the first respondent that the latter is not at all a lunatic and that he appeared to him to be an educated and aged gentleman without any signs of idiocy or a person of unsound mind. He therefore held that there was no basis for the petition and that it was a frivolous and a mala fide one. Against that Order of the learned District Judge, the petitioner in O. P. filed C. M. A. 340 of 1957. It was heard by our learned brother Krishna Rao, J. The learned Judge allowed the appeal and remanded the O. P. to the District Court, which was directed to restore the O. P. to its original file and to proceed to dispose of the same afresh after giving an opportunity to the petitioner to adduce evidence to prove that the 1st respondent is a lunatic within the meaning of the Indian Lunacy Act. The complaint made by the appellant in the appeal before our learned brother appears to be that the learned District Judge erred in dismissing the petition in limine without an elaborate enquiry and without ordering inquisition u/s 62 of the Indian Lunacy Act and merely after examining the 1st respondent and putting him a few questions. It is on the basis of this contention that the C. M. A. was allowed and the O. P. was remanded to the District Judge for fresh disposal.

This Letters Patent Appeal is filed by the 1st respondent, the alleged lunatic, against the order of remand. It is contended before us by the learned Advocate General, appearing for the appellant that under Sec. 62 of the Indian Lunacy Act, the Court has got to satisfy itself whether a prima facie case is made out for ordering any inquisition. It is only when the Court is satisfied that there is a prima facie case on the basis of certificates issued by competent doctors or by examining the alleged lunatic that inquisition can be ordered.

Under Section 62, the Court has a discretion, it is contended, whether or not to order inquisition. An inquisition is a very serious and painful thing for the concerned person and a Court is bound to act with care before ordering inquisition. On the other hand, it is contended by the learned counsel for the respondents that the moment the application is filed u/s 62 of the Indian Lunacy Act, the Court has no jurisdiction to dismiss the application in limine on the ground that the concerned person does not appear to be lunatic; but, on the other hand, the Court is bound to take evidence and decide whether or not the said person is a lunatic. It is necessary to quote Sec. 62 of the Act which is as follows:

Whenever any person not subject to the Jurisdiction of any of the Courts mentioned in Section 37 is possessed of property and is alleged to be a lunatic, the District Court, within whose jurisdiction such person is residing may, upon application, by order direct an inquisition for the purpose of ascertaining whether such person is of unsound mind and incapable or managing himself and his affairs.

It may be noticed that under this Section, the District Court "may" by order direct an inquisition. Prima facie it appears from the plain language of the section that the Court has got a discretion whether or not to direct an inquisition for the purpose of ascertaining whether a person is of unsound mind and incapable of managing himself and his affairs. It has been held in Harbans and Others Vs. Ram Kumar Naik and Others, that it would be desirable in many cases that the Judge should seek some personal interview with the alleged lunatic with a view to satisfy himself that there is a real ground for supposing the existence of an abnormal mental condition which might bring the person within the Lunacy Act. The learned Judges pointed out that ordinary common sense would appear to dictate to a tribunal, before whom such an application comes, that care should be exercised in a painful matter of this kind, namely, an inquiry into a man''s or woman''s state of mind and that specially in the case of people in comfortable circumstances who merely wish to lead a quiet life, care should be exercised that they are not suddenly flung without sufficient reason into an elaborate inquisition which after all is nothing more or less than a trial involving some times the history of a person''s life back for many years, medical evidence and all sorts of family witnesses.

In Saraj Basini Debi Vs. Mohendra Nath Bhaduri and Others, , the procedure to be followed in an application u/s 62 of the Indian Lunacy Act is indicated by Rankin C. J. who also pointed out that an inquisition once commenced must be prosecuted to the bitter end and that it was a very serious oppression to order an inquisition into the state of mind of a person unless there were solid and substantial materials showing that such a course was really necessary. The learned Chief Justice also recommends the necessity for a preliminary investigation to justify an order directing an inquisition. It was also pointed out that, in general, it cannot be wise to make such an order without, at all events, serving some sort of notice upon the lunatic first and without taking a certain amount of care and attention in the matter. The learned Chief Justice held that the first thing which has to be done on an application which was presented u/s 62 of the Act is that the Court should carefully consider whether the case is one which calls for an order directing an inquisition.

These two decisions emphasise that it was a very serious oppression to order an inquisition into the state of mind of a person under Sec. 62 of the Act. In an earlier case in Munwar Sultan Vs. Shamsunnessa Begum, Rankin. J. as he then was, pointed out that the Legislature appreciates that to have an inquisition into the state of mind, the state of health, the state of property and general capacity of a person, is a thing which affects that person so prejudicially that it ought not to be taken except, it be first ordered upon a careful consideration of evidence. In that case, the alleged lunatic, an old lady, filed an application requesting the Court to examine her in order to ascertain whether she was in fact a lunatic and whether there is any need for holding an inquisition and the learned Judge interviewed her and came to the conclusion that there was no ground for ordering an inquisition. The learned Judge in that decision upheld the order of the trial court dismissing the application in limine.

Another decision in AIR 1930 289 (Lahore) is cited before us, wherein it was held that after examining the parties the Court may reject the petition in limine, A decision of a Division Bench of this High Court consisting of Subba Rao, Chief Justice and Satyanarayana Raju, J. in Ganga Bhavanamma and Others Vs. Somaraju and Another is cited before us. It was held therein that the Act is not intended to protect dull witted people but only those who suffer from a mental disorder or derangement of the mind and that though weak minded people also require the assistance of others and the protection of courts, to apply the Lunacy Act to such persons is to go beyond the scope and purpose of the Act. It was also held that both the terms ''idiot'' and ''unsoundness of mind'' indicate an abnormal state of mind as distinguished from weakness of mind or senility following old age. It was further pointed out in that decision that a Court has power to dismiss an application u/s 62 of the Indian Lunacy Act in limine without directing an inquisition.

Bearing these principles in mind, we have to see whether the learned District Judge was justified in dismissing the O. P. in limini or whether the order of our learned brother, Krishna Rao, J. remanding the O. P. for fresh disposal after taking the evidence is the proper one in the circumstances of the case. We have already stated the reasons given by the learned District Judge for refusing to order inquisition. He held that the petition was frivolous and a mala fide one. He interviewed the first respondent, put him several questions and was fully satisfies that there is no basis for the allegation that the first respondent is of unsound mind or is an idiot. In our view, the learned District Judge is perfectly justified in the circumstances of this case in dismissing the petition without ordering any inquisition. He had jurisdiction and it is also his duty to satisfy himself first whether there was a prima facie case for directing inquisition, and, for that purpose, he is entitled to interview the alleged lunatic, the first respondent and if he was satisfied that the allegations are baseless, the learned District Judge is perfectly justified in dismissing the petition in limine. In our opinion, the order of remand is not justified in the circumstances of the case.

When this Letters Patent Appeal was taken up for hearing, the appellant, i.e., the alleged lunatic, was present in Court and we interviewed him in the presence of the learned Counsel for the appellant and for the respondents. We put several questions to the appellant and he gave very sane, independent and proper answers for all the questions. His manner and behaviour appear to be proper and his memory also appears to us to be good. We could find nothing abnormal either in his behaviour or in his talk or in the answers given by him. After the interview, we asked the learned counsel for the contesting respondent whether he could suggest anything abnormal in the appellant and he had to admit that he could find prima facie nothing wrong in the answers given by the appellant or his behaviour.

In these circumstances, we agree with the view of the learned District Judge that the O. P. is a. frivolous and mala fide one. It is admitted by the learned counsel appearing for the contesting respondent that his client is the next heir to the estate of the appellant and that his client is anxious that the appellant shall not deal with or give away the property during his life time and the real purpose of these proceedings under Sec. 62 of the Indian Lunacy Act is to preserve the property of the appellant during his life time so that the petitioner in the O. P. might inherit the entire estate of the appellant. These proceedings are, in our opinion, designed not for the benefit of the appellant or in his interest, but only for the benefit of the petitioner in O. P. who claims to be the next heir, and who would inherit the property of the appellant after his demise.

For the above reasons, the Letters Patent Appeal is allowed with costs against the 1st respondent throughout.