NALLURI KRISTNAMMA Vs. KAMEPALLI VENKATASUBBAYYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by the plaintiffs from a decree, dated September 11, 1914, of the High Court at Madras, which affirmed a decree, dated December 19, 1910, of the Subordinate Judge of Guntur, which dismissed the suit. The suit in which this appeal has arisen was instituted on April 27, 1906, in the Court of the District Judge of Guntur, and was subsequently transferred to the Court of the Subordinate Judge in which it was entered as Original Suit No. 1 of 1910. The plaintiffs in this suit (No. 1 of 1910) were Nalluri Krishnamma and his brother, Nalluri Adinarayudu. The original defendants in this suit were Kamepalli Ramalingam, who is now dead, and his sons, Kamepalli Venkatasubbayya and Kamepalli Seshu. Nalluri Lingayya, who is a natural brother of these plaintiffs, was added as a defendant to the suit on September 17, 1908, and is a nominal respondent to this appeal. He has not appeared, and it has been stated by counsel for the appellants that Nalluri Lingayya has been adopted, according to Hindu law, into another family, and is not interested in the suit or in this appeal.

(2.) IN 1907 Kamepalli Ramalingam and his sons, Kamepalli Venkatasubbayya and Kamepalli Seshu, instituted a suit in the Court of the District Judge of Guntur against Nalluri Kristnamma, Nalluri Adinarayudu, and others, which was subsequently transferred to the Court of the Subordinate Judge, in which it was entered as Original Suit No. 2 of 1910. The two suits (No. 1 of 1910 and No. 2 of 1910) were tried together by the Subordinate Judge, and the evidence in each suit was used in the other. The Subordinate Judge made a separate decree in each suit. Those decrees were appealed to the High Court at Madras, which dismissed the appeal from the decree in suit No. 2 of 1910, and from that decree of the High Court there has been no appeal.

(3.) THE main question in this appeal to an alleged illatom adoption of Ramakristnamma as his illatom son-in-law by Lingappa Naidu. If that illatom adoption is established as valid in law the suit of the plaintiffs fails and must be dismissed. The factum of that adoption cannot now be disputed, and is not disputed in this appeal, but it is contended on behalf of. the appellants that Lingappa Naidu could not legally take Ramakristnamma as his illatom son-in-law, because at the time of the adoption he had a natural son, Venkatachalam, living, and also because at that time Lingappa Naidu was joint with his brothers, Kristnamma Naidu and Kodandarama, and no custom authorizing an illatom adoption under such circumstances has been proved. The parties are Hindus of the Sudra caste and sub-caste Kamma, and are governed by the law of the Mitakshara, except in so far as that law has been altered by custom. The law of the Mitakshara would not allow a Hindu to adopt a son when he had a natural born son living. But if a custom was proved allowing a Kamma to take an illatom son-in-law when he had a natural born son living, both grounds of objection to the illatom adoption in this case would fail.