JUDGMENT Kendall, J.
1. The plaintiffs-respondents sued for the possession of an 18 ganda share in a zamindari property and the defendant-appellant contested their claim to that share. Both the Courts decided that as a result of a partition the plaintiffs were entitled to that share, and this is a decision of fact. The question that has complicated the proceedings however is one arising from a deed of compromise executed by the plaintiffs' father in 1920. It appears that there had been some dispute in the Revenue Courts between the plaintiffs' father and the defendant with the result that the parties agreed that the plaintiffs' father should admit the right of ownership of the defendant in respect of a i annas share in the mahal and in consideration of this admission, should continue to cultivate the sir plots appertaining to the said share. It was part of the defence that as the plaintiffs' father had admitted the right of ownership of the defendant in respect of a "four, anna share, the son could not now claim the share in suit, which appertained to that four-anna share.
2. In the trial Court it was held that the plaintiffs' father could not transfer any property by way of compromise as the property was ancestral, and this also was the view of the lower appellate Court. It may be said here that it is clear that a transfer of this property would not have required a registered deed as the property itself was valued at Rs. 20 in the plaint. If no other consideration had been taken into account and the property had been the property of the plaintiffs' father a transfer by exchange could have been effected by an agreement such as the deed of compromise which is in evidence in this case. It has been argued in second appeal that although the father and sons were members of a joint family and the property concerned must be regarded as joint family property, yet as the property was transferred by the deed of compromise in 1920 it was for the plaintiffs to prove that the compromise is not now binding on them, that is to say, they had to show that it was not for legal necessity. The question of legal necessity does not appear to have been considered in the Courts below owing to the form in which the suit was framed. It was suggested on the part of the defendant that the decision of the Revenue Court based on the compromise would operate as res judicata or that the plaintiffs were estopped from resiling from the agreement entered into by their father.
3. It appears to me however that this deed of compromise cannot be said to be a transfer at all. It was entered into in the course of a revenue proceeding, and the effect of it was merely this that for the purposes of that proceeding, the status quo was to continue. It did not purport formally to transfer the property from one to the other, and that being so, the question of legal necessity could not arise at that time and has, in fact, never arisen. The arrangement made must be regarded as a purely temporary arrangement for the purposes of the Revenue Courts. That being so, it cannot be said that the plaintiffs respondents, who have been found to be the owners of the property in suit, are debarred from claiming that property by a temporary arrangement made by the appellant with their father for what may have been purely temporary considerations. It has been suggested that the plaintiffs are estopped, but from the way in which I have interpreted this document, it must follow that no question of estoppel will arise, and if the plaintiffs are put into possession of the property for which they sue, it will be open for the defendant-appellant to eject their father from the plots which he has been cultivating as a result of that arrangement. In the case of Ram Singh v. Baldeo Prasad A.I.R. 1932 All 643, a Bench of this Court has held that in order to operate as an estoppel under Section 115, Evidence Act, three conditions must be fulfilled: (1) There must be a representation made by the opposite party with a view to cause belief. (2) That representation should have been believed under such circumstances that its falsity could not be ascertained in spite of due diligence. And (3) actions arising out of such belief. In the present case, both parties were perfectly aware of the circumstances and merely made a temporary arrangement for their mutual convenience.
4. The result is that the appeal fails and is dismissed with costs.