KONDETI PULLAYYA Vs. PYDI PEDA APPANNA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the plaintiffs against the dismissal of their suit for recovery of possession of the properties mentioned in the plaint schedule and for mesne profits. Their case was that they are the reversioners of one Kurella Subbanna who was the owner of all the properties involved in the suit. He died intestate in the year 1883 leaving behind him his widow Mangamma who came into possession of the properties and who died years later, on 1st April, 1936. There were three plaintiffs. Plaintiffs 1 and 2 are the sister's sons of the last male-holder while the 3rd plaintiff has joined the suit in her capacity as the purchaser of certain items in the suit from the plaintiffs 1 and 2 in consideration of a sum of Rs. 3,000 needed by the latter for the purpose of carrying on the present litigation.

(2.) The plaint alleges that Mangamma at first got all the properties she had in herited from her husband mutated in the name of her brother Guravayya, upon which the then presumptive reversioners filed O.S. No. 319 of 1883 on the file of the District Munsif's Court, Eluru, for declaration that the widow had only a limited estate therein and that the reversion was not bound by her improper dealings with the property. Later however, she alienated all her properties in her possession in favour of a number of persons of whom the nearest reversioner at the time was one. She purported to have surrendered the properties in favour of the nearest reversioner and his sons and nephews and they, in their turn, conveyed or purported to confirm the previous conveyances of many items of property belonging to the estate in favour of persons in whom she was interested. All these transactions of the year 1925, covered by Exhibits A-2 to A-8 in the suit are attacked by the plaintiffs as not binding upon them who became the nearest reversioners under the Hindu Law of Inheritance (Amendment) Act, 1927.

(3.) The main defence of the contesting defendants was that the surrender deed Exhibit A-2, dated 15th October, 1925, was binding upon the reversion and that the several transactions rested upon it are also valid. They also pleaded at the same time that the plaintiffs were precluded, by their conduct in regard to certain of the transactions which followed the surrender, from disputing the alienations. The 6th defendant urged also a special defence in regard to item 5 of the plaint schedule. This item which was in his possession, he contended, was purchased under rent sales held in the year 1934 in execution of a decree obtained under the Madras Estates. Land Act by the land-holder against the then pattadar and that his title thereto so obtained cannot be impeached by the reversioners. Some of the defendants also filed additional written statements in which particulars of the improvements effected by them on the lands in their possession as bona fide purchasers for value are mentioned and claimed to be entitled to the value of such improvements in case they were dispossessed . There was a question also rasied by the defence as to whether the plaintiffs 1 and 2 are the nearest reversioners to the estate of Subbanna and whether the suit was in time. The finding on the first of these issues has not been questioned before us in this appeal. As regards the question of limitation, it may be pointed out that the suit having been filed before 12 years from the date of the death of Mangamma, it is in time under Article 141 of the Limitation Act, though, if the transaction of surrender of the year 1925 was valid, the plaintiffs' case fails because they would have no cause of action whatsoever. There is therefore no question of limitation involved in the case.