KISHAN Vs. NAMDEO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SUBHEDAR , A.J.C. 1. The facts necessary for the disposal of this second appeal are shortly these: One Laxman had two daughters Mt. Bajai and Mt. Sonai and the plaintiff is the son of the latter. After Laxman's death his widow Mt. Uma succeeded to the property in dispute and alienated the same to defendant 2 in 1926 for a consideration of Rs. 1,200 said to have been required to meet certain objects of legal necessity. Mt. Uma died about four years ago and the plaintiff brought the present suit as a reversioner of his maternal grandfather for possession of the property in dispute on the allegation that it was illegally alienated by his grandmother.

(2.) THE suit was resisted on various grounds the principal one being that since the plaintiff's mother, who was the immediate reversioner, had joined her mother in the alienation the same was binding upon the plaintiff. It was also denied that the plaintiff was a re versioner. Both the Courts below have decreed the plaintiff's claim on the finding that the plaintiff was a reversioner and that the sale was not proved to have been for legal necessity. Defendant 2 has, therefore, come up to this Court in second appeal. It is contended for the appellant that the consent of the plaintiff's mother, who was the next reversioner, should be held sufficient to validate the transfer as against the plaintiff. No question of the validity of the alienation does, however, arise in the present case. Mere consent of the next reversioner does not validate an alienation, it is only of evidential value though not conclusive proof of the existence of legal necessity. It merely raises a presumption of the existence of legal necessity and throws the burden of proving the contrary on the actual reversioner, who questions the alienation after the death of the transferring widow. If the consenting reversioner himself is the actual reversioner claiming the alienated estate he will be precluded by his consent from questioning the alienation.