KONAMMAL Vs. ANNADANA JADAYA GOUNDER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This litigation is concerned with the right of succession to the Jadaya Gounder Jaghir or Chinna Tiruppadi Hill Polliem, as it was formerly known, in the South Arcot District of the Madras Presidency. These ancient polliems in Southern India have always been held to be impartible, and this estate has now been included in the schedule of impartible estates to the Madras Impartible Estates Act II of 1904.

(2.) It is therefore according to the definition in Section 2 of the Act "an estate descendible to a single heir and subject to the other incidents of impartible estates in Southern India," and the proprietor of the estate ia "the person entitled to the possession thereof as single heir under the special custom of the family or locality in which the estate is situated, or if there be no such family or local custom under the general custom regulating the succession to impartible estates in Southern India."

(3.) This statutory definition would appear to be in entire accordance with what has often been laid down by this Board, that these impartible estates are the creatures of custom, and with the decision in Katama Natchiar V/s. The Rajah of Shivagunga (the Shivagwnga case (1863) 9 M.I.A. 539) that where no special custom is proved, the customary law of succession is to be found in the Mitakshara, which is the general customary law in this part of India, "with Much qualifications only as flow from the impartible nature of the subject," and that consequently, in applying this law the impartible estate, though in the sole enjoyment of the holder, is to be regarded for the purposes of succession as the joint property of the holder and his family and as passing by survivorship, unless it is shown to be the separate property of the holder or his branch, in which case it is descendible according to the roles of the Mitakshara as to separate property.