PUDIAVA NADAR Vs. PAVANASA NADAR AND 8 ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question referred to the Full Bench is: Is a Hindu who is congenitally blind thereby excluded from the inheritance, or has the rule become obsolete?

(2.) In Surayya V/s. Subbamma (1920) I.L.R. 43 Mad. 4 Sadasiva Ayyar and Napier, JJ., answered this question by saying that the rule had become obsolete. This case having been tried before that decision was known, the point was not taken at the trial or on first appeal; but the appellant was allowed to raise the point by the Referring Bench. This Court was told in the course of the arguments that it is alleged that the man in question is not, in fact, congenitally blind and it will be for the Referring Bench to consider hereafter whether that matter is one which is now proper to be enquired into. For the purpose of this reference we must assume that he was congenitally blind and treat this case as, in effect, an appeal from Surayya V/s. Subbamma (1920) I.L.R. 43 Mad. 4.

(3.) It is argued that under the Hindu Law, a congenitally blind man never was excluded from inheritance and secondly that, if there was a rule or custom to that effect, it has now become obsolete and is no longer law. It has long been established that in this Presidency the most authoritative statement of, what I may call, the Hindu Common Law is to be found in the Mitakshara, a commentary by Yigrianeswara on the institutes of Yajnavalkya published about A.D. 1080. In Chap. II, Sec. 10 the author quotes the text of Yajnavalkya as follows: An impotent person or outoaste and his sons, one lame, a mad man, an idiot, a blind man, and person afflicted with an incurable disease, and others (similarly disqualified) must be maintained, excluding them however, from participation.