POLEPEDDI VENKATA SIVAYYA MINOR BY NEXT FRIEND AND MATERNAL UNCLE KONDURI VENKATA KRISHNAYYA Vs. POLEPEDDI ADEMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WE think the Subordinate Judge wan right in holding that this suit was barred under Article 118 of the Indian Limitation Act, IX of 1908. It is now settled by the Full Bench decision in Varamma v. Gopaladasayya (1) that a suit for a declaration that an adoption is invalid is a representative suit which the nearest reversioner is entitled to bring on behalf of the whole body of reversioners, born and unborn, within the period prescribed in the article.

(2.) TIME begins to run from the time the adoption becomes known to the plaintiff, and here the adoption came to the knowledge of the next reversioners as soon as it took place in 1902. TIME, therefore, began to run against the whole body of reversioners from that date, and the present suit not haying been brought within six years, is barred. It is said that the nearest reversioner did not bring the suit because he had been bribed to give his consent to the adoption. That might have been a good reason for allowing another reversioner to sue within the prescribed period, if there had been one able and willing to do so. It did not prevent the next reversioner from suing himself, if so minded, or prevent the whole body of reversioners being barred if no suit was brought within the prescribed period. The fact that the plaintiff was born after the alleged adoption and before the suit had become barred under Article 118, did not give him any fresh cause of action or stop time running which had began to run against the whole body of reversioners from the date of the adoption. To hold otherwise would be opposed to the express provisions of Section 9. All that Coutts Trotter, J., as we understand him, intended to lay down in the Fall Bench case, Varamma v. Gopaladasayya (1918) I.L.R., 41 Mad., 659 (F.B.), was that a decree against the next reversioner obtained by fraud or collusion would not be binding on the other reversioners. These observations do not support Mr. Narayanamurti s contention that time would not run under the article against the general body of reversioners if the nearest reversioner abstained from suing from interested motives. The appeal fails and is dismissed with costs.