PALANIAMMAL Vs. KOTHANDARAMA GOUNDAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The subject-matter of this appeal is a deed of gift executed in April, 1929. The donor is the plaintiff who was then a minor represented by his mother Lakshmi. The donee is the aunt of the plaintiff, Palani Ammal, who had been married in 1906. This appeal arises from a suit by the plaintiff to cancel the gift deed. The suit has been decreed by the learned Subordinate Judge of Coimbatore and the donee, the first defendant, has appealed.

(2.) The case of the appellant as disclosed in the pleadings was that when she was married in 1906, the property which is the subject matter of the gift deed amounting to four acres of wet land was actually given to her by her father Peria Sennimalai. However, no formal deed of conveyance was executed. Subsequently, Peria Sennimalai died and in the period between 1916 and 1929, all her three brothers successively died. The last brother who survived was the father of the plaintiff, Kuttia, who died on the 17 April, 1929, just four days before the gift deed was executed by his widow. It was the case therefore of the first defendant that the execution of this deed by Lakshmi in 1929 was the carrying out of a purpose which had been suspended for all the 23 years which had elapsed since the appellant had been married.

(3.) Evidence was let in to prove the connection between the gift and the marriage in two ways. It was first contended that the first defendant had been put in actual possession of the property in 1906 and had remained in possession ever since. It was conceded by the learned Advocate-General, who appeared for her in this appeal that he could not rely upon this evidence, which was rejected by the learned Subordinate judge. Secondly, it was urged that in 1923 a document was taken by the appellant from her two surviving brothers, the plaintiff's father and Marappa, - in which they promised to execute a deed of conveyance in respect of this property to her. That letter recites the fact that there had been an actual gift at the time of the marriage and that it had been their intention to execute the conveyance ever since. This Ex. I contains admittedly the signatures of the two brothers and this point is very strongly stressed for the appellant. For the respondent, it is urged that the appellant or her advisers must have somehow got hold of a blank sheet of paper which had been previously signed by her two brotheis. This is no doubt a stereotyped explanation, when signatures are discovered by parties in inconvenient places, but the learned Subordinate Judge has discussed the recitals of Ex. I and compared them with the recitals of the conveyance itself and the proposed conveyance Ex. II which was, according to the appellant, intended to have been executed by plaintiff's father himself but which he was unable to execute because death supervened.