VALLABHA RAMA RAJA Vs. DEVAKI AMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This second appeal arises out of a suit for recovery of property in denial of a prior kanom demise executed by the plaintiff's predecessor Stani, which has been dismissed concurrently by the courts below.

(2.) The suit properties form portion of a cherikkal which originally belonged in Jenmom to the Stani of the Mannermala Kovilakam who went under the name and style of Onnukure Ayirathil Vallabha Rama Raja a stanom appurtenant to the family of Walluvanad Raja. To that stanom a member of the Puthen Kovilakam branch of the Manjeri Kovilakam was adopted. On this adoptee becoming exclusively entitled to the stanam of Onnukure Ayiraram he executed a gift deed dated 7-3-1041 and filed in the case as Ext. A-7 conveying all the stanam properties and perquisites, inclusive of the suit properties in favour of the members of his natural family, the Puthen Kovilakam. There is some controversy as to whether the properties covered by the gift enured under its terms to the Puthen Kovilakam tarwad just like its other ancestral properties or on the other hand appertained to the stanam created in the fifth male member in order of age for the time being, in the Kovilakam, who was to manage them and to which position the plaintiff succeeded in 1113 (1937-38). It was common ground, however, that the four other stanams in the Manjeri Kovilakam inhering in the first four members, viz., the karnavapad, Elemasthani and the next two male members in point of age, were only stanams loosely so-called, that is to say, with no properties attached. The plaint properties had been outstanding under kanom of 14-9-1916. They were redeemed and recovered by the plaintiff's predecessor on 12-1-1934 in execution of a decree of court. Some few months later he granted a kanom thereof in favour of the 1st defendant under Ext. B2 dated 28-8-1935 with a term of 12 years and fixing the kanom amount of Rs. 685-11-5 and the purapad as 65 paras of paddy and 8 annas per year, as under the prior kanom demise. The plaintiff, after he became the Stani, collected the purapad in due course from the 1st defendant up to 1121 (1945-46). The plaint averred that the plaintiff was unaware during all this interval between 1113 and 1121 that Ext. B2 was a new kanom demise, otherwise he would not have acted on it and that in fact, it was a fraudulent and collusive transaction brought about without any stanam necessity and in excess of the powers of the late Stani and that it was therefore void and not binding on the plaintiff or his swaroopam. The suit was laid accordingly on 2-9-1947, in the plaintiff's capacity as the successor Stani for recovery of the properties with mesne profits for the past year 1122 and for the future at the rate of 350 paras of paddy per annum and without reference to Ext. B2 kanom. The plaint was later amended on 15-3-1948 so as to sustain the suit on basis of a cause of action attached to the plaintiff's Kovilakam rather than himself. The defendants 2 and 3 were impleaded as persons in possession under the first defendant.

(3.) The 1st defendant contested the suit mainly on the footing that the demise of the properties by way of the kanom in the case had been effected only in the usual course of enjoyment by the plaintiff's predecessor Stani and there had been no fraud or collusion at all in the matter. The plaintiff had further accepted the same and acted thereon with full knowledge and for considerable time and was accordingly estopped from questioning it. After the amendment of the plaint on 15-3-1948 the first defendant raised also a question of limitation and further the non maintainability of the suit without the karnavan on the party array.