C.N. ARUNACHALA MUDALIAR VS C.A. MURUGANATHA MUDALIAR
| Citation | 1953 AIR 495 1954 SCR 243 |
| Date of Judgment | 14 October, 1953 |
| Court | Supreme Court of India |
| Case Type | Civil Appeal No. 191 Article 136 |
| Appellant | C.N. ARUNACHALA MUDALIAR |
| Respondent | C.A. MURUGANATHA MUDALIAR AND OTHERS |
| Bench | MUKHERJEA, B.K. MAHAJAN, MEHR CHAND JAGANNADHADAS, B. |
| Referred | Article 136 |
FACTS OF THE CASE
The gifted properties by father to son by way of will it was self–acquired and separate property of him. It was the right of the father to distribute his property equally or unequally among his sons, it was depending upon the father’s intention. If he has self separated property he has the right to sell or donate or transfer the unknown person also under the following law. In this case Arunachala was Father of Murugantha and Murugantha was the son of Aruganchala’s second wife. Arunachala’s father made a will in favour of his son Arunachala therefore Murugantha wanted his share of this property but Arunachala denied. So Murugantha sued in court and claimed all property was acquired ancestral property and he must have a share in this property.
The trial court concluded that all property was ancestral and all income was family income. The trial court judge came to a conclusion that defendant No. I should hold ancestral property and other properties acquired out of this income are joint property. Defendant No. I took an appeal in high court Madras but the court dismissed an appeal and concluded that Jewelry existed and it belonged to the dependent no. 3. The plaintiff claimed the furniture and brass utensils were dismissed. Defendant No. 1’s application was rejected by the High Court but he succeeded in getting special leave under article 136 of the constitution.
ISSUE IN THE CASE
-What kind of interest a son would take in the self-acquired property of his Father?
-Whether the properties that defendant No 1 received under his father’s will be considered ancestral or self-acquired property in his possession concerning his son?
ARGUMENTS
The case was presented in front of court bench judge Mukherjea. The defendant No. I in his written statement traversed all these allegations of the plaintiff and denied that there was any joint family property to which the plaintiff could lay a claim. His case was that items I and 2 of Schedule B lands as well as the house property were the self-acquired properties of his father and he got them under a will executed by the latter as early as in the year 1912. The other items of immovable property as well as the cash, furniture and utensils were his own acquisitions in which the son had no interest whatsoever. As regards the jewels mentioned in the plaint, it was said that only a few of them existed and they belonged exclusively to his wife the defendant No. 3.
The substantial point that requires consideration in the appeal is whether the properties that the defendant No. I got under the will of his father to be regarded as ancestral or self acquired properties in his hands. If the properties were ancestral, the sons would become co owners with their father in regard to them and as it is conceded that the other items of immovable property were mere accretions to this original nucleus, the plaintiff’s claim Must Succeed. If, on the other hand, the bequeathed properties could rank as self-acquired properties in the hands of defendant No. 1, the plaintiff’s case must fail. The law on this point, as the courts below have pointed out, is not quite uniform and there have been conflicting opinions expressed upon it by different High Courts which require it to be examined carefully.
The defendant No. 2, who is the brother of the plaintiff, supported the plaintiff’s case in its entirety. The defendant No. 3 in her written statement asserted that she was not a necessary party to the suit and that whatever jewellery there was belonged exclusively to her.
Clearly the latter passages are in flat contradiction with the previous ones and in an early Calcutta case a reconciliation was attempted by taking the view that the right of the sons in the self-acquired property of their father was an imperfect right incapable of being enforced at law. The question came pointedly for consideration before the Judicial Committee in the case of Rao Balwant v. Rani Kishoriand Lord Hobhousel who delivered the judgment of the Board, observed in course of his judgment that in the text books and commentaries on Hindu Law, religious and moral considerations are often mingled with rules of positive law. It was held that the passages in Chapter 1, section 1, verse 27 of Mitakshara contained only moral or religious precepts while those in section 5, verses 9 and 10 embodied rules of positive law. The latter consequently would override the former. It was held, therefore, that the father of the joint Hindu family governed by Mitakshara law has full and uncontrolled powers of disposition over his self-acquired immovable property and his male issue could not interfere with these rights in any way. This statement of the law has never been challenged since then and, it has been held by the various High Courts in India, and in our opinion rightly, that a Mitakshara father is not only competent to sell his self acquired immovable property to a stranger without the concurrence of his sons, but he can make a gift of such property to one of his own sons to the detriment of another, and he can make even an unequal distribution amongst his heirs.
“The grandson has a right of prohibition if his unseparated father is making a donation or sale of effects inherited from the grandfather but he has no right of interference if the effects were acquired by the father. On the contrary he must acquiesce, because he is dependent.” Placitum 28, section 4 of Mitakshara is very significant. A Mitakshara father can make a partition of both the ancestral and self-acquired property in his hands any time he likes even without the concurrence of his sons, but if he chooses to make a partition. he has got to make it in accordance with the directions laid down in the law.
In Vide Yagnavalkya. Book 2. 129. In the hands of the father, the son has equal rights with his father; while in the self-acquired property of the father, his rights are unequal by reason of the father having an independent power over or predominant interest in the same. It is obvious, however, that the son can assert this equal right with the father only when the grandfather’s property has devolved upon his father and has become ancestral property in his hands. The property of the grandfather can normally vest in the father as ancestral property if and when the father inherits such property on the death of the grandfather or receives it by partition, made by the Grandfather himself during his lifetime. On both these occasions the grandfather’s property comes to the father by virtue of the latter’s legal right as a son or descendant of the former and consequently it becomes ancestral property in his hands. But when the father obtains the grandfather’s property by way of gift, he receives it not because he is a son or has any legal right to such property but because his father chose to bestow a favor on him which he could have bestowed on any other person as well. The interest which he takes in such property must depend upon the will of the grantor.
It is not viable to maintain that property given or gifted to a son must be ancestral property in the hands of the done, in which his son would gain interest, for two reasons: (a) Equal Ownership Doctrine (b) Definition of self-acquisition.
∙ Mayne’s Hindu Law states a son can demand equal rights with his father only once grandpa’s property has devolved and became ancestral property in his possession. Aside from that, the father owns most of his self-acquired property.
∙ The testator has the authority to select not only the donee under the will but also the nature of the interest he takes in the property, which is determined by the conditions of the gift.
∙ If there is no specific statement defining the type of interest the donee would get, the court will have to infer the donor’s purpose from the document’s wording and the surrounding circumstances.
∙ Reading the will in this case, the estates donated were to be held by sons, and the document mentions many other relatives, but there is no mention of the son’s son at all.
JUDGEMENT
After hearing the case the trial judge came to the conclusion that properties bequeathed to defendant No. His father should be held to have ancestral properties in his hands and as the other properties were acquired by defendant No. 246 1 out of the income of the ancestral estate, they also became impressed with the character of joint property. The result was that the Subordinate Judge made a preliminary decree in favour of the plaintiff and allowed his claim as
laid in the plaint with the exception of certain articles of jewellery which were held to be non-existent. 14 October 1953 against this decision, the defendant No. I took an appeal to the High Court of Madras. The High Court dismissed the appeal with this variation that the jewels such as those as existed were held to belong to defendant No. 3 alone and the plaintiff’s claim for partition of furniture and brass utensils was dismissed. The High Court rejected the defendant No. 1’s application for leave to appeal to this court but he succeeded in getting special leave under article 136 of the Constitution.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by MUKHERJEA J.This appeal, which has come before us on special leave, is directed against a judgment and decree of a Division Bench of the Madras High Court dated December 13, 1949, affirming, with slight modification, those of the Subordinate Judge, Coimbatore, passed in O.S. No. 138 of 1945.
The substantial point that requires consideration in the appeal is whether the properties that the defendant No. I got under the will of his father to be regarded as ancestral or self-acquired properties in his hands. If the properties were ancestral, the sons would become co-owners with their father in regard to them and as it is conceded that the other items of immovable property were mere accretions to this original nucleus, the plaintiff’s claim Must Succeed. If, on the other hand, the bequeathed properties could rank as self-acquired properties in the hands of defendant No. 1, the plaintiff’s case must fail. The law on this point, as the courts below have pointed out, is not quite uniform and there have been conflicting opinions expressed upon it by different High Courts which require it to be examined carefully.
In our opinion, on reading the will as a whole the conclusion becomes clear that the testator intended the legatees to take the properties in absolute right as their own selfacquisition without being fettered in any way by the rights of their sons and grandsons. In other words, he did not intend that the property should be taken by the sons as ancestral property. The result is that the appeal is allowed, the judgments and decrees of both the courts below are set aside and the plaintiff’s suit is dismissed. Having regard to the fact that the question involved in this case is one of considerable importance upon which there was considerable difference of judicial opinion that the plaintiff himself is a pauper, we direct that each party shall bear his own costs in all the courts.
REFERENCES
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1148062/
https://lawplanet.in/cn-arunachala-mudaliar-vs-ca-muruganatha-mudaliar/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NixjQYW6FVo
This Article is written by Sachin Chopade from Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University of Aurangabad, Maharashtra. Intern at Legal Vidhiya.
