The judgment established the principle that a demand by the creditor is not necessary to justify an alienation to discharge a debt, and emphasized the necessity of a pressing need for alienation.

1. These appeals are by respondents 3 and 5 in A. S.48 of 1960 on the file of the Sub-Court, Alleppey. Divakara Menon the respondent in these two appeals had filed the suit for setting aside Ext. E sale deed executed by his mother and one Kutten Menon for the suit property. The property which was 82 cents of vacant land, was allotted along with other items to the branch of the plaintiff and his mother in the tarwad partition of the year 1106. The plaintiff was then a minor and Kutten, Menon, a member of another branch, was directed to be in management of the properties allotted to the plaintiff's branch. The validity of the sale was questioned on various grounds. It was alleged that Kutten Menon was acting against the interest of the plaintiff's branch, that the plaintiff who was a major was represented as a minor and that his mother was fraudulently induced to be a party to the sale of the property for a grossly inadequate price. It was also alleged that the document is not supported by consideration and necessity, as the hypothecation debt for the discharge of which the sale deed was executed had earlier been discharged out of the income of the properties allotted to the branch of the plaintiff and in any view there was no pressing need to justify an outright sale of the property.

2. The case that the plaintiff was a major on the date of sale has been found against by the trial court as also the first appellate court. The trial court.

also found that the sale deed is supported by consideration and necessity and dismissed the suit. In appeal the learned Subordinate Judge, while upholding the finding that the document is supported by consideration, set it aside and allowed recovery of possession accepting the case of absence of necessity. The factors that contributed to that finding are (i) there was no pressing need to discharge the debt; (ii) the document was brought about by Kutten Menon to facilitate the sale of the adjacent property belonging to his sister to the same vendee; (iii) the sale was for a grossly inadequate price; (iv) the debt could well have been discharged out of the income of the properties allotted to the plaintiff's branch; and (v) there was no justification for an outright sale of the suit property which was in the actual possession of the tarwad. The correctness of all these findings is questioned in these appeals.

3. The consideration for the impugned sale is Rs. 600/- out of which Rs. 595/- went towards the discharge of Ext. VII hypothecation bond of the year 1109, which itself was executed to discharge the principal and interest payable under an earlier hypothecation of the year 1097 executed by the tarwad and directed to be discharged by the plaintiff's branch in the partition deed and Rs. 5/-was paid before the Sub-Registrar to Kavukutti Amma, a member of another branch of the tarwad. The contention of the plaintiff that the said debt had already been discharged otherwise, having been found against, it follows that practically the entire consideration for the sale went in the discharge of a debt of the year 1097 charged on tarwad property. Hence the first question to be answered is whether this binding and long outstanding debt could have been discharged by other means. It is well proved that the income of the properties was hardly sufficient to meet the running expenses of the tarwad and that no surplus could be found to be utilised for the discharge of the several debts recited in the partition. The plaintiff has practically no knowledge of the income of the property prior to the year 1114. pw. 3, a member of another branch of the tarwad admits in unequivocal terms that the income was hardly sufficient to meet the expenses of the tarwad and no surplus was available. pws. 4, 5 and 6 are not consistent in their estimate of the income of the properties. According to their evidence, at the time of partition the plaintiff's branch was getting the yield from 40 paras of paddy land and 200 to