SUBRAMANIA MUDELIAR Vs. KJRANGANATHAN CHETTYAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The only question with which we have to deal in this appeal is, whether the plaintiff or the 10th defendant is the nearest reversionary heir of one Sankaramurthi Mudeliar.

(2.) The plaintiff is the son of Sankaramurthi s father s sister s son and 10th defendant is the brother of Sankaramurthi s mother. The Subordinate Judge has decided the question in favour of the 10th 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 10th defendant are both atma bandhus of Sankaramurthi. That does not appear, judging from the judgment, to have been questioned before him. Before us, Mr. Ramachandra Iyer suggested the possibility of regarding the plaintiff as pitri bandhu, but I am unable to accede to that suggestion, and in the face of the case Sundarammal v. Rangaswami Mudaliar 18 M. 193; 4 M.L.J. 275 being immediately referred to, 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 materal line.

(3.) Both competitors, then, being in the class of atma bandhus, the matter is, in my opinion, concluded by authority in this Court. In Sundarammal v. Rangasami Mudaliar 18 M. 193; 4 M.L.J. 275 and Balusawmi Pandithar v. Narayana Rao 20 M. 342; 7 M.L.J. 207 it was held that bandhus ex parte materna are to be postponed to those ex parte paterna. The contest in the former case between plaintiff and 3rd defendant closely resembles the position in, the case before us and there (vide page 199) preference was given to the more distant paternal kinsman over the nearer relative on the maternal side.