1. Law regulates life and the problems of the law are really problems of life. I am therefore baffled when called upon to declare the law of inheritance to property of Pulaya-Harijans prevailing half a century ago when they were themselves often de facto owned as the property of others and annexed, as it were, to their lands rather than owning lands as their property to be inherited by others. Today their economic lot has improved, at snail's pace though, and the law of succession is now in no doubt, thanks to the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. The case, however, relates to one who died at the turn of the century, having acquired and left behind a plot of land. His tiny estate has bred litigation among his descendants.

2. The few facts necessary to appreciate the controversy involved in this appeal, may now be briefly stated. One Theyyon - quite an adventurous man, judging by the fact that he had acquired a property as early as 1892 when the community to which he belonged was 'untouchable' and 'unapproachable' to landed property, and was being bought and sold as chattel had died leaving neither wife nor children but a sister called Korumbi. She was the only object of his af