KUNJUNNI MOOPIL NAYAR Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question in this appeal is of the constitutional validity of S.7(3) of the Hindu Succession act, XXX of 1956. It is contended that the Section offends Art.14 of the Constitution and is therefore void. The only aspect of discrimination pressed into service is that while the members of the tarwad are given shares along with the sthanee in the sthanam properties, the sthanee is not given a share along with the members of the tarwad in the tarwad properties.

(2.) In the Mannarghat Sthanam there are two sub sthanams - the Mooppil sthanam and the Elaya sthanam - of which this appeal concerns only the former. The sthanee, who held the Moopil sthanam at the commencement of the Hindu Succession Act, had assumed the sthanam in March, 1940. It is not disputed that on becoming a sthanee he lost his rights in the properties of the Kunnathat Matampil tarwad of which he originally was a member. In 1944 the members of the tarwad instituted O. S. No. 51 of 1955 to partition the tarwad properties without conceding shares to the two sthanees. That suit has been decreed and partition worked out finally. In 1956 a member of the sthanee instituted another suit, O. S. No. 65 of 1956, for partition of the sthanam properties basing the claim on the Madras Act, XXXII of 1955. That Act was however struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Kochunni v. States of Madras and Kerala ( AIR 1960 SC 1080 : 1960 KLT SC 31 ). But, in the meanwhile, the Mooppil sthanee died on January 3, 1960, and thereupon the claim for partition in O. S. No. 65 of 1956 was amended as under S.7(3) of the Hindu Succession Act. The Elaya sthanee, who is the heir apparent to the Moopil sthanam, then filed O. P. No. 1121 of 1960 in this Court for a declaration that S.7(3) of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956,. offends Art.14 of the Constitution and is therefore void. Vaidialingam J. having dismissed that petition he has come up in appeal herein.

(3.) The relationship between the tarwad and the sthanee has been recently considered by the Supreme Court in Kochunni v. States of Madras & Kerala (AIR 1960 SC 1080 : 1960 KLT SC 31) when; Subba Rao J. speaking for the majority, observed: