MULUGU CHENGAYYA Vs. ARUVELA DEVASANAMBA GARU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question in this appeal is whether the plaintiff s share was sold by the 6th defendant to the 1st defendant under sale deeds, Exs. VII and III. The contention of Mr. Somayya for the appellant is that the 6th defendant sold the property as his and that he did not sell the property as the manager of the joint Hindu family and therefore he could not have validly conveyed the share of the plaintiff. He places great reliance upon the evidence of P.W. 3, the son of the 1st; defendant. In his evidence he stated that it was believed at the time of the sale that the plaintiff had been adopted into another family. From this the appellant wants us to infer that the 6th defendant sold only his share of the family property. The circumstances are these: The plaintiff and the 6th defendant are brothers. The property of the family was sold for paying off the debts of their father and in the documents there is no mention that the right of the 6th defendant alone was sold. No doubt there is no mention in it that the 1st defendant conveyed the properties under Exs. VII and III as managing member of the joint Hindu family. But the question is where the de facto manager of a joint Hindu family conveys the property without any reservation and without restricting the right conveyed to his own share, whether the Court should presume that the vendee contracts to buy and the vendor contracted to sell the interest of the whole family in the property. The proper presumption in such a case would be that where a vendee purchases property from a de facto manager of the joint Hindu family and there is nothing in the document to show that the manager conveys only his share or that he reserves the share of anybody from being conveyed both the parties to the conveyance intended that the whole interest of the family should be conveyed by it. Here in this case there is an additional circumstance that the debt for which the sales were effected was a debt binding both upon the plaintiff and upon the 6th defendant. The purpose being one which could bind both the plaintiff and the 6th defendant, the mere fact that the vendee did not describe himself as the managing member of the joint Hindu family is not a circumstance which should be taken as militating against the presumption that what the bona fide purchaser bought was the whole interest of the joint family in the property conveyed to him.

(2.) Mr. Somayya places great reliance upon Balwaant Singh v. R. Clancy (1912) I.L.R. 34 All 296 at 298. The facts of that case are different from those of the present. la that case the vendor claimed the property as impartible property belonging to himself alone, it was held that he could not have intended to convey the interest of the younger brother whose right he denied in the document itself. Their Lordships of the Privy Council found that the brother was a minor at the time and therefore his consent to the sale was of no avail to the vendee. They also found that the mortgage was not made by Sheoraj Singh as the manager of the family or in any respect as representing Maharaj Singh. Here when the 6th defendant conveyed the property, he did not deny the right of the plaintiff, nor did he hold out that he was the only person interested in the property. The ease in Ammani Ammal v. Ramaswami Naidu (1919) 10 LW 75 does not help the appellant. It is unnecessary to consider the cases quoted by Mr. Chandrasekhara Aiyar such as Maharaj Singh v. Balwant Singh (1906) I.L.R. 28 All 508 at 517, Surapa Raju v. Vinkayya (1915) MWN 908 and Audimula Mudali v. Alamelu Ammal (1916) 4 LW 126 in the view we have taken of the case. We consider the judgment of the learned Judge to be correct and dismiss the Letters Patent Appeal with costs, two sets, one to the 1st defendant and the other to the 5th defendant s legal representatives.