SUBRAMANIA MUDALIAR Vs. RANGANATHAN CHETTIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The only question with which we have to deal in this appeal is whether the plaintiff or the tenth defendant is the nearest reversionary heir of one Sankara Murthi Mudaliyar.

(2.) The plaintiff is the son of Sankara Murthi s father s sister s son and the tenth defendant is the brother of Sankara Murthi s mother. The Subordinate Judge has decided the question in favour of the tenth defendant, holding that the maternal uncle, being nearer in blood, and being a person who would offer oblations to ancestors of the deceased, must be preferred to the plaintiff who makes no such offerings. The Subordinate Judge, rightly, I think, holds that the plaintiff and the tenth defendant are both Atma bandhus of Sankara Murthi; that does not appear, judging from the judgment, to have been questioned before him. Before us Mr. Ramachandra Ayyar suggested the possibility of regarding the plaintiff as Pitru bandhu, but I am unable to accede to that suggestion, and in the face of Sundrammal v. Rungasami Mudaliar (1895) I.L.R., 18 Mad., 193, to which I refer immediately, it cannot be held that the father s sister s grandson is merely on the ground of remoteness disentitled from succeeding before nearer relatives in the maternal line. 2. Both competitors then, being in the class of Atma bandhus, the matter is, in my opinion, concluded by authority in this Court. In Sundrammal v. Rangasami Mudaliar (1895) I.L.R., 18 Mad., 193 and Balusarni Pandithar v. Narayana Rau (1897) I.L.R., 20 Mad., 342 it was held that bandhus ex parte materna are to be postponed to those ex parte paterna. The contest in the former case between the plaintiff and the third defendant closely resembles the position in the case before as and there (vide page 199) preference was given to the more distant paternal kinsman over the nearer relative on the maternal side.

(3.) It was contended by Mr. Ramachandra Ayyar that the decision may be supported on the ground that in that case the heir preferred by the Court was a person who offered oblations to paternal ancestors of the deceased, while his competitor offered oblations only to the maternal ancestors.