T M NARAYANAN NAMBUDHRI Vs. KRAVUNNI NAIR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appeal from the decree in A.S. No. 25 of 1920 on the file of the Court of the Subordinate Judge, Ottapalam (O.S. No. 326 of 1917, on the file of the Court of the District Munsif of Ottapalam).

(2.) Plaintiffs sue to recover Rs. 2,917-3-2 due under two hypothecation deeds executed to them in 1905 by one Pappi Antarjanarn. The lower Appellate Court decreed the suit for Rs. 1,235-6-9 and defendants 2 and 3 appeal. Defendants 2 and 3 were the minor sons of a Nambudhri, defendant 1, since deceased. He was an idiot and deaf. Pappi Antarjanam is his second wife and step mother of defendants 2 and 3. The plaint sets forth that at the time when she executed these mortgages, Pappi Antarjanam was the "manager" (sic) of the defendants mana on her own behalf and as guardian of the three defendants. The defendants in their written statement besides alleging fraud contended that Pappi Antarjanam had no authority to execute any document whatever. The minors were not under her guardianship.

(3.) The only issue framed is whether the suit bonds are valid and supported by consideration. The District Munsiff bas assumed throughout his judgment that Pappi Antarjanam had authority to borrow and confines himself to the question of justifiable necessity. The omission to discuss whether she was capable of borrowing is made the second ground of appeal in the lower Appellate Court. The learned Subordinate Judge found that she was in a very necessitous condition and had to incur debts for maintenance and household expenses for a period of eight months and in any view of the law applicable to the ease whether the ordinary Hindu Law obtaining on the East Coast, or the special Nambudri Law applicable to the case of a Nambudri female in management. (as to which the law is not quite settled-seo Ramachandra Aiyar's Malabar Law Section 88 and Topics of Malabar Law, 12 M.L.J. 180) such debts would be binding on the defendants.