Sir John Edge :-

This is an appeal by the plaintiff in the suit against a decree, dated the 9th December, 1914, of the High Court at Madras, which reversed a decree, dated the 22nd April, 1912, of the Subordinate Judge of Tinnevelly and dismissed the suit. The parties to the suit are Hindus, and the suit is for a declaration to protect the interests of the plaintiff as a reversioner in certain immoveable property which was sold for Rs. 5,300 on the 22nd November, 1897, by the defendant 1 to the defendants 3 and 4.

The defendants 1 and 2 are the widows of one Medai Dalavoi Shanmuga Kumaraswami Mudaliyar (hereafter referred to as Shunmuga), who died childless in 1892. Shanmuga was a separated Hindu, and at the time of his death was possessed of a considerable estate, which was more or less encumbered. That estate included a one-third share in the village Aiyanarkulam. That village will be hereafter referred to as the Mouza.

On the death of Shanmuga the defendants 1 and 2 succeeded to his estate as Hindu widows. After the defendants 1 and 2 had succeeded to the estate they divided the estate or part of it between them, and thereafter each of them enjoyed separately those parts of the estate which had fallen to her on the division. Part of the estate which was so divided was the one third share in the Mouza, and thereupon each of the defendants 1 and 2, as between themselves, was entitled to and enjoyed separately her moiety of that one-third share. That one-third share was subject to a mortgage which Shanmuga and a brother of his had granted on the 25th May, 1879; on that mortgage the mortgagees had obtained a decree for sale on the 30th March, 1897, if the amount due with interest thereon should not be paid on the 15th August, 1897. There was also due on the 22nd November, 1897, the sum of Rs. 1,605-5-0, the first defendant's agreed share of liabilities under a mortgage of the 6th November, 1888, which Shanmuga had granted.

The total amount due by the first defendant under those two mortgages on the 22nd November, 18?7, was Rs. 4,588-2-2, and in order to provide for the discharge of those debts the defendant 1 sold, on the 22nd November, 1897, to the defendants 3 and 4 her moiety of the one-third share in the Mouza for Rs. 5,300. The balance of Rs. 711-13-10 of the Rs. 5,300 it is alleged, on behalf of the defendant 1, that she appropriated to reimburse herself for expenses which had been incurred in connection with the marriage, three years before the sale, of a daughter of Shanmuga's brother. That is the sale which the plaintiff alleges was invalid as against him as a reversioner.

The plaintiff is a son of a separated uncle of Shanmuga, and he admittedly is the nearest surviving agnate of Shanmuga. The plaintiff brought this suit on the 13th December, 1909, to obtain a declaration that the sale of the 22nd November, 1897, is void as against him as a reversioner. In his plaint he stated that his cause of action arose on the 22nd November, 1897 ; he was of full age in 1897, but no explanation is given of the cause of the delay in bringing the suit.

He is a co-sharer in the Mouza, and it appears to their Lordships that it would have been idle for the plaintiff to have suggested, if be had given evidence in the suit, that he did not know of the sale at the time of the sale or very soon afterwards. The sale was effected by a registered deed.

The other 94 defendants are persons whose titles to parts of the lands in question depend on the validity of the sale of the 22nd November, 1897.

In the plaint it is alleged :-

"VIII. The small debt owed by the said estate could have been discharged by defendants 1 and 2 from the surplus income of the said estate and from the outstandings due to it. But without doing so, defendants 1 and 2 have, with the evil intention of causing damage to the reversioner's right and fraudulently and against law and justice, been making separate alienations, by way of sale, mortgage, etc., of the properties forming thei