SRI AUROBINDO SOCIETY Vs. RAMADOSS NAIDU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This second appeal raises a point about the validity of an alienation of a Hindu minor's property by a facto guardian. This species of guardians has been abolished by S. 11 of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act 1950. But the transaction in this case arose before the Act, and hence it bears on the position of law which prevailed earlier. It also raises a point as to the appropriate steps to be followed by the minor for impugning or getting over sales by de facto guardians.

(2.) The facts of this case are not in dispute. One Lakshmi Ammal had a life interest and her two sons had a vested remainder in an item of land. These were be quoted to them under a Will. When second son Govindrajulu was still a minor, the mother Lakshmi, Ammal and her first joined together and sold the entire bequeathed property, inclusive of the minors interest there in. In that conveyance, the mother purported to act as the minor's guardian. The minor's father was very much there at the time, but he rested content with attesting the sale deed.

(3.) The minor came of age in 1956. His mother died in 1965. Subsequently in 1967 the minor sold the half share in the property which, he got under the Will to the Aurobindo Society.