Additional evidence in appeal is limited to necessity, and customary challenge to alienation fails without proof of ancestral property.

Additional evidence in appeal is admissible only when the appellate court requires it to pronounce judgment, not to fill gaps left at trial; on the stated facts, the evidence was rightly disregarded because no necessity was shown and its genuineness was doubtful. Once that material was excluded, there was no satisfactory proof that the property descended from a common ancestor by inheritance, so it was not established as ancestral. As a result, a customary challenge to the alienation of non-ancestral immovable property was barred by section 7 of Punjab Act II of 1920, and the challenge failed.

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Issues: (i) Whether the District Judge was justified in admitting additional evidence under Order XLI, rule 27 of the Code of Civil Procedure; (ii) whether the property in dispute was ancestral so as to permit challenge to the alienation on the basis of custom.

Issue (i): Whether the District Judge was justified in admitting additional evidence under Order XLI, rule 27 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

Analysis: Additional evidence in appeal can be received only when the appellate court requires it to enable it to pronounce judgment, and not merely because a party seeks to fill a gap after the trial. The record showed no inherent lacuna or necessity for such evidence; the documents were admitted before the appeal was heard, and their genuineness was itself doubtful because of apparent interpolation and other intrinsic infirmities.

Conclusion: The admission of additional evidence was not justified, and the High Court was right in disregarding it.

Issue (ii): Whether the property in dispute was ancestral so as to permit challenge to the alienation on the basis of custom.

Analysis: Once the improperly admitted evidence was excluded, there was no satisfactory proof that the common ancestor owned the property and that it descended by inheritance in the manner claimed. On the remaining material, the land could not be treated as ancestral, and section 7 of Punjab Act II of 1920 barred a challenge to an alienation of non-ancestral immovable property on the ground of custom.

Conclusion: The property was not proved to be ancestral, and the challenge to the alienation failed.

Final Conclusion: The decree in favour of the plaintiff could not stand, and the appeal failed with costs.

Ratio Decidendi: Additional evidence in appeal is admissible only when the appellate court requires it to pronounce judgment, and a challenge to an alienation of non-ancestral immovable property on customary grounds is barred by section 7 of Punjab Act II of 1920.

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