The legal principle established is that children born of unmarried parents can be legitimized if their parents subsequently marry, and adverse possession can confer title to property.

1. Appeal by the 1st defendant.

2. The facts concurrently found by the Courts below are: The suit property belonged to Pathrose, the late brother of the plaintiff; defendants 2 and 3 are born to Pathrose and Dw. 4 before they got married on October 16,1927; Pathrose's father, Markose, had executed Ext. C in 1111 (1936) gifting the property to his younger son, Mathai; Mathai died unmarried; the plaintiff is his heir; and defendants 2 and 3 on July 16,1951, sold the property under Ext. B to the 1st defendant who is in possession of the property since then. This suit has been instituted on December 1,1951, for declaration of title to the property with the plaintiff and for its recovery with mesne profits. The Munsiff found defendants 2 and 3 to be illegitimate children of Pathrose disentitled to succeed him and therefore the 1st defendant to have derived no right to the property under their conveyance, and the plaintiff to be sole heir of Pathrose entitled to the suit property and allowed the suit. The Additional District Judge affirmed him observing further that from 1111 (date of Ext. C) till 1126/1951 (when Mathai died) Mathai had been asserting title to the property and himself and after him the plaintiff had been in possession of the suit property. Hence this second appeal.

3. The findings of the Courts below that defendants 2 and 3 are illegitimate children of Pathrose because they were born before actual solemnisation of the marriage between their parents cannot be accepted. A Practical Commentary on the Code of Canon Law by Woywod and Smith (1957 Edition), Para.1150, reads thus:

"Children born of unmarried persons; who at the time of the conception or during pregnancy, or at the time of birth, were free to contract a valid marriage, are rendered legitimate by a subsequent valid marriage and also by an invalid marriage contracted in good faith. It is immaterial whether the marriage is newly contracted, or a former invalid marriage is validated, and the legitimation of the children already born takes place even if the marriage is not consummated by conjugal intercourse (Canon 1116).

There is no case that at the time defendants 2 and 3 were conceived or at any time before they were born there was any impediment for a marriage between their parents. Ext. V, copy of the Marriage Register kept in the Church of the Parish to which both the parents of defendants 2 and 3 belong, shows that they married according to the Catholic rites on October 16,1927, and that has been accepted by the Courts below. It must then follow that the case comes straightly within the first clause of Canon 1116 quoted above and defendants 2 and 3 have to be and are declared legitimate children of Pathrose and Mariam (Dw. 4).

4. The Courts below have found that Pathrose left the country in about 1103 (1927-8), and Dw. 4 left the place with her children and her second husband in 1109 (1934). There is no evidence of anybody having been in possession of the property after 1934 on behalf of defendants 2 and 3 till the date of their assignment to the 1st defendant in 1951. On the other hand Ext. C, the gift deed (Udampady) executed by Pathrose's father in favour of Mathai and the evidence of Pw. 3 a neighbour to the property, believed by the Courts below, show that Mathai had been in possession of the property. From 1934 to 1951 it is more than 17 years. The 2nd defendant was 25 years old and the 1st defendant 23 years at the time of institution of this suit. The testimony of Pw.3 is clear that even after attainment of majority, defendants 2 and 3 had not taken any yield of the property though there are bearing trees and pepper-vines thereon. Twelve years' non-possession extinguishes title to landed property; and conversely twelve years' adverse possession confers a prescriptive title thereto. The finding of the Courts below that the title to the property is on the date of this suit vested in the plaintiff appears supported by the facts and circumstance