V SUBRAMANIA MUDALIAR Vs. KRANGANATHAM CHETTIAR

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 Mudaliar.

(2.) The plaintiff is the son of Sankaramurthi s father s sister s son and the 10th defendant is the brother of Sankaramurthi s mother. The Subordinate Judge has decided the question in favor 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 Atmabandhus of Sankaramurthi. That does not appear, judging from the judgment, to have been questioned before him; before us Mr. Ramachandra Aiyar suggested the possibility of regarding the plaintiff as a pitrubandhu, but I am unable to accede to that suggestion and in the face of the case Smidarammal v. Rangasami Mudaliar (1896) I.L.R. 19 M. 405 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.

(3.) Both competitors then being in the class of Atmabandhus, the matter is in my opinion, concluded by authority in this Court. In Sundarammal v. Rangasami Mudaliar (1894) I.L.R. 18 M. 193 and Balusami Pandithar v. Narayana Rao (1897) I.L.R. 20 M. 342 it was held that handhus exparte paterna are to be postponed to those exparte patema. The contest in the former case between plaintiff and 3rd defendant closely resembles the position in the case bafore us and there (vide p. 199) preference was given to the more distant paternal kinsmen, over the nearer relative on the maternal side. It was contended by Mr. Ramachendra Aiyar 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. If that were the sense in which the: learned judges were using the, Latin phrases exparte patema and exparte materna, I have no doubt they would have said so and as they make no reference whatever to the superior spiritual efficacy of oblations offerred to paternal ancestors of the propositus, I have no doubt that they did not base their decision on any such consideration.