NARAYANAN NAIR Vs. TALUK LAND BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The revision is filed against the order passed by the Taluk Land Board, Taliparamba. Declarant Narayana Iyer was holding 23.03.500 acres of property as on 1-1-1970. An extent of 50 acres fell under the exempted category. The declarant contended before the Taluk Land Board that his only son Neelakantan had acquired one half right over the property and that he was governed by Mitakshara law. The Taluk Land Board rejected the contention of the declarant that they were governed by Mitakshara law. It also took the view that there was no evidence that the properties involved in the proceedings were ancestral.

(2.) Under Hindu Law there are only two main schools of law, viz., Dayabhaga and Mitakshara. The Dayabhaga lays down the principle of religious efficacy as a ruling canon in determining the order of succession and it rejects the preference of agnates to cognates which distinguishes the other system. Dayabbaga school of law denies the doctrine that property is by birth and it treats father as the absolute owner of the property and authorises him to dispose of it at his pleasure. It is not disputed that in Kerala especially the Brahmins follow the Mitakshara school of law. Under Mitakshara law son has got a right by birth in father's property. The son's right is vested by birth. An undivided son takes not only the paternal grandfather's property but also the property acquired by hit father not strictly by inheritance, but by virtue of his right by birth from the date of his conception. There cannot be any dispute that under Mitakshara law the son has got the right by birth in the property acquired by the father. Here the Land Board rejected the contention of the petitioner on the ground that he was not governed by Mitakshara school of law and also on the ground that the property was an ancestral one.

(3.) The term "ancestral property" denotes the property which decends upon one person in such manner that his main issue acquired certain rights in it as against him. It would be ancestral property if the father had inherited the same as an unobstructed property and it is not an ancestral property if it has been inherited by him as obstructed property. In the case of ancestral property father had a vested interest in the property before the inheritance fell in and therefore his son acquires similar interest in the property before decent took place. Hence all property which a man inherits from a direct male ancestor not exceeding three degrees higher than himself is ancestral property.