ABBIREDDIGARI RAMI REDDI Vs. ATLA ROSAMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) As the reference was necessitated by the decision of a Division Bench of the Madras High Court ocnsisting of Mack and Krishnaswamy Nayudu JJ., in -- Venkateswarlu v. Challaiya, AIR 1953 Mad 551 (A), it will be convenient, at the outset, to scrutinise the facts of that case and the principles enunciated therein. The proved facts of that case are: The last male-holder, Pichayya, died 60 years prior to the suit, leaving the 20th defendant, a childless widow.Defendants 1 and 2 were the sisters sons of Pichayya. The widow surrendered her husbands estate in favour of defendants 1 and 2, the nearest reversioners. To effectuate the transaction, the widow, Pichayyas sister and the mother of defendants 1 and 2 jointly executed a surrender deed in favour of defendants 1 and 2 conveying all the properties of Pichayya subject to the condition that the reversioners should pay the widow a sum of Rs.2,000.00 towards her maintenance and for religious purposes.Immediately after the execution of the surrender deed, the next reversioners and the remote reversioners divided the properties. On the same date, defendants 1 and 2 also executed a sale deed conveying 3 acres, 6 cents of land to the widows brother D. W. 1 for a sum of Rs.3,000.00. Out of this, Rs.2,000.00 was mentioned as having been received by defendants 1 and 2 to enable them to pay the widow the maintenance as provided under the surrender deed.More than three years thereafter, D. W. 1 sold the said land to defendant 15, the widows brothers son, for the same oonisderation. The learned Judges held, on the evidence, that the transfer in favour of D. W. 1 was for adequate consideration. On the aforesaid facts and on the findings of the learned Judges, the transaction might be supported on the basis of surrender, on the ground that the alienation by the next reversioners in favour of D. W. 1 was supported by consideration and, therefore, it was not a device to deivide the estate between the widow and the reversioners.But the learned Judges went further and made observations, which would appear to revolutionalise the law of surrender as understood prior to the decision. At page 553, Krishnaswamy Nayudu J., posed the question to be decided as follows:

(2.) IN short, the learned Judges conclusion was that, unless, at the time of the transaction, the property of the last male-holder was divided between the reversioners and the widow, it would not be a device to divide the estate. If there is a complete effacement of her interests in the property, according to the learned Judge, the fact that it was done pursuant to an arrangement to divide it between the reversioner and a nominee of the widow, would not affect the validity of the surrender, if the nominee was not a benamidar of the widow.Mack J., in a short judgment accepted the reasoning and the conclusion of Krishnaswamy Nayudu J. The learned Judges view was expressed in the following sentences:

(3.) I shall, at this stage, notice the decisions cited at the bar forming landmarks in the development of the law of surrender to discover, if possible, the real principle underlying the doctrine.