Dwyamushyayana adoption is obsolete in Andhra Pradesh and is not a valid form of adoption.

( 1 ) THE appellant is the plaintiff. He instituted a suit in the Court of the District Munsif, Dharmavaram, for a declaration that the adoption of the first defendant by the third defendant is neither true nor valid nor binding on him. The second defendant was impleaded as the elder brother of the first defendant and it is unnecessary to notice him hereafter in this Second Appeal.

( 2 ) THE main defence was that the adoption was true, valid and binding on the plaintiff. The trial Court held that the adoption was not true and that the agreement of adoption, Exhibit B-1 dated aand May, 1942, was a false and ante-dated document. Consequently, it dismissed the suit. On appeal, the Additional District Judge, anantapur, reversed the finding of the trial Court and came to the conclusion that the adoption was true as "well as valid. He, therefore, decreed the suit. The plaintiff has now come up in Second Appeal challenging the correctness of the decision of the lower appellate Court regarding the validity of the adoption.

( 3 ) THE adoption of the first defendant by the third defendant was in Dwyamushyayana form. This is common ground. Exhibit A-1 is the agreement entered into between the natural father of the first defendant on the one hand and the third defendant as the adoptive father on the other, with the avowed object of making the first defendant remain at the same time the son of both his natural father and his adoptive father. Thus, under the adoption in question, the first defendant was to be the son of two fathers. An intended consequence of this appears to be that the first defendant would inherit in the family of his natural father as also in that of his adoptive father. Perhaps both these families would also inherit to him. The natural father of the first defendant is the maternal uncle of the third defendant. It is admitted that at the time of adoption the first defendant s natural father had several sons. The plaintiff is the after-born natural son of the third defendant.

( 4 ) THE only contention raised in this Second Appeal is that, Dwyamushyayana adoption was never in existence in this part of the country, that in any event it had become obsolete long long ago and that therefore an adoption in that form is not now valid. In Mayne s treatise on Hindu Law and Usage, Eleventh Edition, at page 266 in para. 208 it is stated :"the only form of Dwyamushyayana adoption that is not obsolete is the nitya or absolute Dwyamushyayana in which a son is taken in adoption under an agereement that he should be the son of both the natural and adoptive fathers. It appears to be obsolete in Madras on the East coast. But in the West Coast among the Nambudri Brahmans, it is the ordinary form. In Bombay and the United Provinces its existence is fully recognised, but with the qualification that the onus of proving that an adoption was of this type lies upon those who assert it. It has been recognised by the Judicial Committee in two cases from Bengal. "

( 5 ) IN support of the statement that Dwyamushyayana adoption is obsolete in Madras on the East Coast, reliance in placed on Vasudevan v. The Secretary of State for India, 1887 ILR 11 Mad 157. which is a decision of a Bench of the Madras High Court consisting of Sir Arthur j. H. Collins, Chief Justice and Muttusami Ayyar, J. At page 179, it is observed:"dwyamushyayana adoption is obsolete on this coast, but we need hardly cite texts or do more than refer to Datta Chandrika, S. II, 41 and 42, in order to show that dwyamushyayana adoption was well known to ancient Hindu Law, though the form in which adoption now prevails on this side of the ghats is what is called sudda dattu, or adoption pure and simple, that is to say, an adoption which completely sevres the person adopted from his natural family and fixes him in the adoptive family. "

( 6 ) THIS decision held that Duyamushyayana adoption was prevalent among Nambudri brahmins, who were governed by special custom which they adopted after the

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