G VENKAYAMMA Vs. G VEERAYYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Judgment of the Court was delivered by Viswanatha Sastri, J,: These three appeals arise out of suits instituted by the plaintiff Gaddam Veerayya, the paternal uncle of Sambayya, deceased, for a declaration that certain sales of Sambayya's lands effected by his widow and mother were not binding on his reversioners. It is not now disputed that the plaintiff is the nearest male reversioner of Sambayya. The sales impugned in these appeals are Exhibits B-5, B-14 and B-12 effected by the widow and mother of Sambayya claiming to be absolutely entitled to the properties sold under Sambayya's will Exhibit B-l dated 19th September, 1937. The widow and the mother of Sambayya as well as the vendees from them were made defendants to the suits. The Court below held that Exibit B-l had not been proved to be the will of Sambayya and that the widow of Sambayya had inherited his properties as his heir-at -law. The sales were not sought to be supported by the vendees on the ground of any necessity of the estate and the only issue of fact arising in these appeals is as regards the truth and genuineness of the will, Exhibit B-1. At the hearing before us. it was argued (hat even if Exhibit B-l was not proved to be the last will and testament of Sambayya, the suits were not maintainable by reason of section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act (XXX of 1956) which enlarged the limited interest of a Hindu widow into an absolute estate with retrospective effect and there by put an end to the rights of reversioners to sue for the protection of the estate of the last male owner during the lifetime of his widow. Section 14 (1) of the Hindu Succession Act (XXX of 1956) enacts that any property possessed by a female Hindu, whether acquired before or after the commencement of this Act, shall be held by her as full owner thereof and not as a limited owner". For the purposes of this section, "property" includes both moveable and immoveable property acquired by a female Hindu by inheritance. The section provides that, subject to certain exceptions where a limited estate has been created by a written instrument, whatevet property is in the possession of a Hindu woman, whether it has been acquired before or after the commencement of the Act, shall be regarded as her absolute property. The previous law allowing only a Hindu woman's limited estate to a widow inheriting her husband's property has been abrogated. Though section 14 of the Act is retrospective in so far as it enlarges a Hindu .woman's limited estate into an absolute estate even in respect of property inherited or held by her as a limited owner before the Act came into force, its operation is confined to property in the possession of the female when the Act came into force. The word "possessed" in section 14 refers to possession on the date when the Act came into force. Of course, the possession referred to in section 14 need not be actual physical possession or personal occupation of the property by the Hindu female, but may be possession in law. The possession of a licensees or mortgagee from the female owner or the possession of a guardian or trustee or agent of the female owner would be her possession for the purpose of section 14. The word "possessed" is used in section 14 in a broad sense and in the context possession" means "the state of owning or having in one's hands or power".

(2.) It includes possession by teceipt of rents and profits. Even if a trespasser is in possession of land belonging to a female owner on the date when the Act came into force, the female owner might conceivably be regarded as being in possession of the land, if the trespasser had not perfected his title by adverse possession before the Act came into force. It is not however necessary for us to express an opinion on this point. Where, however, before the Act came into force, the female owner had sold away the property in which she had only a limited interest and put the vendee in possession, she should in no sense be regarded as "possessed" of the property when the Act came into force. The object of the act was to confer a benefit on Hindu females by enlarging their limited interest in property inherited or held by them into an absolute estate, with retrospective effect, if they were in possession of the property when the act came into force and therefore in a position to take advantage of its beneficient provisions. The act was not intended to benefit alienees who, with eyes open, purchased property from female limited owners R.No. 143. without any justifying necessity before the Act came into force and at a time when the female vendors had only the limited interest of a Hindu woman. On a transfer of property, it is only the transferor's interest that would pass to the transferee, the general principle being that a person cannot, transfer to another more than what he or she is entitled to and a transferee cannot therefore have a better title than what the transferor had to the property transfereed. If the transferor held the property only under limitations, the transferee would take it subject to those limitations, except in the case of a bona fide purchaser for value without notice from a person who had himself acquired title under a voidable sale. Before the Act came into force, a Hindu widow had power to convey an absolute interest in property inherited by her from her husband only under particular circumstances. She could however have conveyed her limited interest in the property in the absence of any necessity, and a transfer by her in the absence of such necessity cannot convey anything more than her own limited interst. A Hindu female limited owner who, before the coming into force of the Act, had sold property inherited by her retains no right to or interest in the ptoperty on the date of the coming into force of the Act. Section 14 merely enlarges her limited interest into an absolute estate in the property held by her when the Act came into force and does not enlarge the rights of a purchaser of her limited interest before the Act came into force. The rule of "interest feeding the estoppel" enacted in section 43 of the Transfer of Property Act on which reliance was placed for the appellant, would not avail the vendees because the female vendor does not get an absolute estate under section 14 of the Act in property of which she was not in possession at the date when the Act came into force. For these reasons, the appellant's objection to the maintainability of the suits by reason of the enactment of section 14 of Act XXX of 1956 must be overruled. A further legal objection is taken to the maintainability of the suics O. S. No. 138 of 1949 and 198 of 1949 which form the subject of A.S. No. 80 of 1950 and A.S. No. 802 of 1951. It is argued that these suits were instituted by a remote reversioner more than six years from the dates of the sales under Exhibits B-5 and B-12 effected by the widow of the last male owner. It is urged that Article 120 and not Article 125 of the Limitation Act applies to the case. There has been a divergence of Judicial opinion on this point among the several High Courts and among the Judges of the Madras High Court. In Chiruvolu Punnamma v. Chiruvolu Perrazu a Full Bench of the Madras High Court was of the opinion that Article 125 was intended rather to describe the character of the suit than to strictly limit the persons who might bring such suit. In the opinion of the Full Bench, though the point did not directly arise for decision, having regard to the fact that the presumptive reversioner sues not on his own behalf alone but on behalf of all other possible reversioners as well, the language in which a suit of that nature is described in column 1 of Article 125 is wide enough to include a suit in which, in exceptional circumstances, a reversioner other than the nearest rever- sioner, is allowed to be the plaintiff and have the conduct of the suit. In this view Article 125 would apply to all suits by reversioners to question alienations during the widow's lifetime. In Veeramma v. Gopaladasayya , a later Full Bench of the Madras High Court went much further and following Venkatanarayona v. Subbammal, and Janki Ammal v. Narayanaswami Iyer , held that a suit by a reversioner to set aside an alienation by a Hindu widow was a representative suit on behalf of all reversioners, then existing or thereafter to be born, and that all of them had but a single cause of action which arose on the date of the alienation. Wallis, C. J., in his order of reference and Sadasiva Aiyar and Seshagiri Aiyar,J.J, siting in the Full Bench were of the opinion that Article 125 was the only Article applicable to suits by reversioners, presumptive or remote, for setting aside alienations of the widow during her lifetime. Rajagopala v. Ramanuja Kuppuswami v. Thangavelu , and Yagnanarayana v. Lakshminarayana , were decisions of single Judges of the Madras High Court. In Rajagopala v. Ramanuja and Kuppuswami v. Thangavelu , it was assumed that Article 120 of the Limitation Act would apply to a suit by a reversioner other than the presumptive reversioner for setting aside an alienation by the widow during her lifetime.

(3.) In Yagnanarayana . Lakshminarayana, to which one of us was a party, it was observed : 'Though a literal interpretation of the first column of Article 125 would make it applicable to a suit only by a presumptive reversioner, a wider interpretation has been put upon jt so as to make it applicable even to a suit by a remoter reversioner in view of the fact that a suit by a reversioner to set aside an alienation by a limited owner is a representative one brought on behalf of all the reversioners and that all of them have only a single cause of action. At any rate, this is the view of a Full Bench of this Court in Varamma v. Gopaladasayya .