HOUSABAI Vs. JIJABAI BABA POWAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal against the appellate Judgment dated 31st December, 1961 of the learned District Judge, Satara. The appeal was originally filed by the three Defendants in the suit from which the present appeal arises. Defendant No. 1 died during the pendency of this appeal and his heirs and legal representatives were joined as respondents 2 to 7. The appeal was dismissed against the respondent No. 6 for want of prosecution. The respondents 2 to 5 and 7 have not appeared. Respondent No. 1 is the original plaintiff.

(2.) THE dispute is about three properties. They formed a part of the estate of one Shivaba who died in or around 1920. He was succeeded by his son Baba who died leaving him surviving his widow Goja. Goja alienated three of the properties of which her late husband Baba was the full owner. One of the properties was sold on 2nd May, 1942 to Defendant No. 1, another on 4th January 1943 to defendant No. 2 and a third on 23rd March 1943 to Defendant No. 3. After these alienations she adopted the plaintiff as a son to her husband on 22nd April 1959. Thereafter she died.

(3.) ON 19th September, 1960 the plaintiff as such adopted son filed in the court of the learned Civil Judge, Junior division, Karad, the suit from which the present appeal arises challenging the three alienations as being without legal necessity. The defendants denied the adoption and further contended that the plaintiff was in any case past of age of fifteen years on the date of his adoption and therefore by virtue of Section 10 of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956, the adoption was invalid. They further contended that as these properties had vested in them prior to the adoption by virtue of proviso (c) to Section 12, the plaintiff could not divest them. They further pleaded that there was legal necessity for the alienations by Goja.