NARAYANAN POTTI Vs. KRISHNAN POTTI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) There are three branches in a Malayala Brahmin illom, the plaintiffs being members of one branch, defendants 1 to 5 belonging to the second branch and the sixth defendant being a member of the third branch. The suit out of which this Second Appeal arises, was instituted by the plaintiffs, for an allotment for their maintenance, claiming 13/22 of the illom properties. Defendants 1 to 5 had filed O.S. 3 of 1107 for maintenance of the members of their branch and obtained a decree Ext. V, in pursuance of which, items 1 and 9 or portions thereof were allotted to them. The sixth defendant has similarly sued for maintenance and obtained a decree in O.S. 1051 of 1108, though that decree had not been executed. In the present suit, defendants 1 to 5 set up Ext. V decree as a bar and pleaded, that the arrangement for maintenance under that decree could not be altered. The two Courts have overruled this contention and granted a preliminary decree for effecting an allotment of maintenance for the plaintiffs, on a proper division of the illom properties by the issue of a commission.

(2.) In this Second Appeal by defendants 1 to 5, the contention has been repeated by their learned counsel, that in any view, the possession of defendants 1 to 5 of the portions of items 1 and 9 cannot be disturbed. This was stated to be on the principle contended for, that once maintenance is decreed by a court to a member of the family, it is not liable to alteration even on changed conditions and circumstances. I find myself wholly unable to subscribe to this proposition. As observed in Krishnan Damodaran v. Narayanan Kumaran [ 1951 KLT 424 ), the liability to revision is the hall-mark of a maintenance arrangement and in my opinion, this is applicable, at least to some extent to a decree for maintenance. It has been ruled in an early case by the Travancore High Court in Parameswaran Narayanan Bhattathiri v. Parameswaran Savithri Antharjanom (31 TLR 117), that a decree in a maintenance suit is not final in the sense, that the rate once fixed by it, cannot be altered under any circumstance. This rule has been affirmed by a later decision of the same High Court in Shanmugasundaram Maistry Neelacanten v. Palayasam Nallayadivu (3 TLT 839). Mulla on Hindu Law, 12th Edition, page 719 observes: