This revision petition by a defendant arises out of a dispute relating to inheritance regarding certain lands situated in Mahaal Kotli, Tchsil Pasrur, District Sialkot; at one time owned by his father Sohna and, after his death, inherited by his four sons born of two wives. Several years thereafter in the year 1959 one of them, namely, Nasrullah Khan died issueless to be followed after an interval of about two decades by the issueless-death of another one, Jamadar. Upon their respective deaths their surviving brothers were considered entitled to equally inherit the shares of land abandoned by them and mutations were accordingly sanctioned by the Revenue authorities.
2. By the year 1980, only two of them, namely, Sardar Khan and Muhammad Nawaz petitioner were left. Former sued out the later for, in essence, being declared not entitled to inherit either of the two sons of Sohna and he himself having become an owner of 5/6th share of the land. Sardar Khan died during the pendency of the litigation and was succeeded by his legal representatives who continued the suit. Defendant contested the claim on the basis also of a number of technical objections. Parties led their evidence on the settled issues and without adverting to the substance of the dispute, trial Judge proceeded to dismiss the suit by his judgment dated 27-6-1987 on the basis merely of technical objections relating to limitation and estoppel, without bringing under consideration the documentary evidence existing on the record.
3. Appeal there against filed by the successor-plaintiffs was heard by Mr. Muhammad Ahmad Afghani, Additional District Judge before whom it was conceded by the defendant's counsel that he was born of a woman other than the mother of the remaining three sons of Sohna. He recorded this concession in the concluding portion of para. 4 appearing at page 6 of his judgment dated 5-6- 1989 in the following words:-- "Learned counsel for the defendants-respondents admitted that the defendants-respondents was born from different mother but same father of Sardar Khan father of the plaintiffs-appellants. The defendant-- respondent was not, therefore, full brother of deceased. Nasrullah Khan and Jamadar."
Conclusion was accordingly reached in the appeal below that .The original plaintiff Sardar Khan was a real brother of the two deceased sons of Sohna but the defendant Muhammad Nawaz was their consanguine brother and was not entitled to succeed to them in the presence of their real brother. In consequence, the trial Court's judgment and decree were set aside upon accepting the appeal by the judgment dated 5-6-1989 and the suit was decreed in the terms prayed for.
4. The defendant has now come up to this Court on revision and without either challenging the above-reproduced admission made on behalf of the defendant with regard to a question of pure fact or anywise disputing the finding reached in the appeal below about the exact relationship of the parties with the two deceased, appellate decree is sought to be assailed on the following two grounds:--
(a) that since the original plaintiff Sardar Khan had admittedly withdrawn a mutation appeal on the basis of compromise, therefore, he was liable to be deemed -to have waived his right to inherit both the deceased and was even estopped from suing for it; and
(b) that his suit with regard to the inheritance at least of Nasrullah Khan was time-barred.
5. After duly considering the aforementioned contentions, I have not been able to discover any substance in them. Title stands determined by the finding of fact justified on the record reached in the appeal below on the basis also of a binding admission that the defendant was born of a lady other than the mother of the plaintiff and the two deceased. There is no reason for this aspect of.
The dispute being re-opened to be considered again at this revisional stage. The first contention with regard to estoppel and waiver is not tenable in law because under the Muslim Law devolution of inheritance upon the legal hers 1 of a deceased is an incident which automatically takes place simultaneously with his death and is incapable of being averted by an unwilling heir and, howsoever unwantingly, he has to get invested with it. He has no choice in the matter. A recognized heir cannot prevent the coming to him of inheritance, once it may open out. Abandonment of claim to inherit before the actual opening out thereof or transfer of prospective right of inheritance cannot be effectuated on account of the rule of spes successionis and inheritance takes its course without regard to the conduct expressed in the past by the prospective heir. The moment that inheritance comes to an heir it becomes an inseparable part of his relationship with the deceased.
Only the gains of inheritance if not wanted to be retained by an heir, can be capable of being alienated by means of transfer which has to be a separate and independent event coming later in sequence to the inheritance itself. Hence it is wrong to claim that right of inheritance may have been waived or abandoned by anyone. Such is an impossibility. There cannot be any question of Sardar Khan having waived his right of inheritance and .He is not even alleged to have anywise transferred the inherited land to anyone. Hence, there does not exist any conceivable reason for the title, in the relevant lands left by his two full --brothers in consequence of their issueless deaths, devolved upon him; to be held to have not become vested in him. In order to operate as estoppel, the conduct has to involve some kind of express or implied representation which may have led another person to change his position to his disadvantage by believing the representation made to him as correct. There is no representation on the point of not inheriting even attributed to Sardar Khan and much less could the defendant have believed any representation to be true for the truth already being known to him and there is not even any change of position made by the defendant to his disadvantage on the basis of any representation attributable to Sardar Khan about not inheriting the deceased. Hence, even the pica of estoppel has no legs to stand upon. Viewed as above, the first contention raised for the petitioner becomes too preposterous to be tenable in any way and the same is accordingly repelled.
6.The other contention regarding limitation appeared to be only unconsidered. Learned counsel could not point out the precise Article of the Limitation Act where under this suit claiming a decree for possession could be held time-barred in the facts and circumstances of the dispute. He only vaguely mentioned Article 120 with the assertion that since cause of action had arisen in the year 1959 upon the death of Nasrullah Khan, Therefore,the suit brought in the year 1980 was time- barred. This Article does not even obliquely refer to the cause of action as the starting point of limitation but clearly puts it at the time of accrual of right to sue. When so pointed out, with his attention drawn to the fact that status of the parties is that of co-sharers from the moment of the death of their father Sohna and the present controversy is directed-merely to the extent of their respective shares in the land and not to their status, learned counsel rightly gave up the plea about limitation.
7. No other point has been raised for consideration.
8. Before parting with this case, it deserves to be mentioned that some confusion was created in the appellate Judge having made inconsistent references to the parties in singular and pluralised expressions as' defendants-respondents; defendant-respondent, plaintiff-appellant and at one place in the middle of page 5 of the judgment actually using the expression `plaintiff-respondent' after mentioning the defendant as respondent at the top of that page; he went on to refer to the parties in the rest of the judgment at numerous places only varyingly sometimes in plural and at others in singular, without maintaining the distinction about their array on one side or the other in the appeal despite there being only one defendant and Five plaintiffs all along in the litigation arrayed on opposite sides. These mistakes are not any new and they are produced in result of frequent use of expressions `appellant' and `respondent' sometimes for one party and at another for the other one on account of their altered position at different stages of litigation, depending upon success or failure in the immediately preceding round. Notice of such mistakes was taken half a century before also and to achieve their avoidance specific guidance was provided in para. 19 of Chapter 14--B of Volume I of the High Court Rules and Orders, as under:-- "19. As confusion frequently arises from the use of the words `appellant' and `respondent' in two successive appellate Courts, especially when the. Parties appealing belong to different. Sides, appellate Court should not use these terms without the use of words 'plaintiff' r `defendant', as the case may be; or the latter terms alone may be used." However, this does not imply that one conjuncted-expression of original and appellate status of a party may have always to be used and easier method of referring only to the original status of parties may not be sufficient. Rather, experience has shown that unrestricted and frequent use of duplicated expressions does not only lead to the author of a judgment being confused and even confusion being created for its reader but also makes the judgment itself cumbersome. Hence, such terms ought only to be sparingly used in the judgments at some junctures of significance so that in the rest of them only the original status of party conveyed by the term `plaintiff' or `defendant' may be expressed for their advantage of being helpful in achieving clarity about the course of litigation which is at times, fairly involved on account of repeated rounds. It is( quite essential that judgments of subordinate Courts may also improve qualitatively and one way of achieving this object. Is to avoid superfluity, which certainly is there in repetition.
9. Be the above as it may, result of the above discussion is that there is not found any force in this revision-petition which is accordingly dismissed in limine