A Hindu father can alienate coparcenary property for the benefit of the family, even in the absence of legal necessity, provided that he acts as a prudent owner and takes every precaution to ensure that the alienations are not to the detriment of the other members of the family.

( 1 ) THE result of this appeal will depend upon the answer we give to the question whether the alienations made by the 1st defendant, the father of the plaintiffs 1 to 4 ; 2, 3 and 4 being minors ; represented by the next friend, the 1st plaintiff, were intended to benefit the joint family of which the Ist defendant and the plaintiffs were undivided members.

( 2 ) IN this appeal, we are only concerned with the alienations made by the 1st defendant under Ex. B-28 dated 10. 2. 1954 in favour of the 2nd defendant and under Ex. B-12 dated 7. 2. 1954 in favour of the 16th defendant, and the alienations covered by Ex. B-14 dated 22. 2. 1954 in favour of the 16th defendant and under Ex. B-32 dated 19. 2. 1954 in favour of the 15th defendant.

( 3 ) WE may state at the outset that neither the 1st plaintiff the major son of the 1st defendant nor the 1st defendant nor the mother of the plaintiffs has gone into the witness box to rebut the evidence adduced by the defendants 2, 5, 6, 25 and 26.

( 4 ) THE facts giving rise to this appeal are these :- The plaintiffs are the sons of the 1st defendant and they were residents of Pachala Tadiparru, a village in Bapatla Taluk. They owned dry and wet lands some houses a rice mill and other items of property as shown in Schedules A, B, and C. Their father the 1st defendant sold all the properties at Pachala Tadiparru either on the ground of discharging the debts incurred by his father, or on the ground of "necessity". So far as the items with which we are now concerned they were sold on the ground that those properties were not yielding enough income and that it would be profitable to sell those lands and migrate to another village Chevur in Kaikalur Taluk of Krishna District where lands of higher productivity could be purchased at a cheaper rate. The lands in question, as also the houses which are the subject matter of this appeal were sold by the 1st defendant for purchasing properties at Chevur for the benefit of the family. The alienations thus effected by the father, the 1st defendant, were questioned by the sons on the ground that those sales are not supported by consideration. They were nominally executed in favour of defendants Nos. 2, 5, 25 and 26. All these alienations were said to have been made in the course of two years, and by the end of 1954 there was not a single item of ancestral property left in the village of Pachala Tadiparru. In short, it is the case of the plaintiffs that they were made without any legal necessity, and without any benefit to the family.

( 5 ) THE 2nd defendant resisted the action contending inter alia that he purchased under the sale deed Ex. B-28 dated 10. 2. 1954 Ac. 2-40 cents item 1 (a) of the plaint A schedule for Rupees 8,000/- and that sale was preceded by an agreement and that that agreement would show that the 1st defendant sold the properties to purchase some other properties from Narasimha Rao of Chevur and that before the sale deed was executed by the 1st defendant he had paid Rs. 3,000 on 11. 9. 1953 and Rs. 5,000 on 2. 2. 1954 to the vendor of the 1st defendant at Chevur and the 1st defendant himself had made the endorsement on the agreement of sale executed by Narasimha Rao in favour of the 1st defendant.

( 6 ) THE defence set up by the 16th defendant who purchased Ac. 4-52 cents covered by items 1, 4 and 5 of the plaint schedule is also on similar lines. He paid Rs. 6000. 00 on 11. 9. 1953 and Rs. 11,000. 00 on 2. 2. 1954 to Narasimha Rao the vendor of the 1st defendant and had those payments made by him endorsed on the agreement of sale.

( 7 ) DEFENDANTS 5 and 6 have similarly contended that the 1st defendant sold tiled houses to them at the market value for Rs. 5,000. 00 on 19,2,1954 and that that amount was applied by the 1st defendant for purchasing houses at Chevur.

( 8 ) WHAT was sold to the 15th defendants, whose legal representatives are brought on record after his death was Item 3 of the plaint A schedule a tiled cattle