The main legal point established in the judgment is that the property obtained by a Nayar female towards her share under an outright partition in her tarwad does not retain the character of tarwad property and becomes her separate property. The court also clarified that the share obtained on individual partition is alienable and heritable, constituting the separate property of the sharer.

1. This second appeal arises in a suit by the first plaintiff, and her son the second plaintiff, to set aside a sale deed dated the 6th Mithunam,1118, by the second defendant who is the mother of the first plaintiff, in favour of the 1st defendant. The property sold belonged to the tarwad of the second defendant and was allotted to her on partition which took place on the 8th Medom,1104. The first plaintiff was not born at the time. The plaintiffs impugned the sale deed as not binding on the tavazhi of the second defendant to which the property was said to belong. The first defendant contended that by the partition, the property belonged to the second defendant absolutely. Relying on the decision of the majority of the judges of the Travancore-Cochin High Court in Iravi Pillai Parameswaran Pillai v. Mathevan Pillai Ramakrishna Pillai (1954 KLT. 862), the courts below decreed the suit. The correctness of the decision of the majority in the case cited, was doubted by my learned brother Madhavan Nair, J., and on a reference made by him, this appeal has been heard by us. The majority of the judges had held in the case cited that property obtained by a Nayar female towards her share under an outright partition in her tarwad, will retain the character of tarwad property and become the property of her tavazhi on the birth of a child to her so as to destroy her absolute powers of disposal over it. Sankaran J., as he then was, dissented and held the contrary, and I am in entire agreement with his view.

2. Partitions of tarwad properties into shares whether of individuals or of tavazhies were not unknown to the customary Marumakkathayam Law, but such partitions were consensual and not compulsory. Books do speak of such partitions; a full bench of the Travancore High Court had decided in Swaminatha Pillai Maharaja Pillai v. Ramalekshmi (44 TLR.126 at 138), that a partition deed entered into by the adult members of a tarwad is binding upon its minor members in the absence of fraud. The Travancore Nayar Act, 1088, which was the first of its kind, did not confer a right of partition, but the Cochin Nayar Act of 1095 conferred such a right on collateral tavazhies, and on male children, and female children without issue who did not belong to any of such tavazhies. Then came the Travancore Nayar Act II of 1100 and the Cochin Nayar Act XXIX of 1113, which may be regarded as having conferred on every member of a tarwad (subject to certain restrictions prescribed by the former) the right to claim his or her share of the tarwad properties, that is, the right of individual partition as it is generally called. The present case is governed by the provisions of the Travancore Nayar Act of 1100; those which relate to partition find a place in Chapter VII. The following statement of objects and reasons may be referred to, though not for construing any of the provisions, as indicating the purpose of the enactment:

"This is new and the attempt is to give effect to the consensus of opinion freely, forcibly and persistently expressed by the members of the community that they require individual partition so as to remove the principal impediment in the path of their progress-"

3. S.33 of the Travancore Nayar Act of 1100 has, subject to certain restrictions or limitations, conferred on every member, the right to claim his or her share of the tarwad properties. The restrictions or limitations were conceived, with a view to safeguard and protect the rights and interests of minor members or of the tavazhies of the tarwad or of both, in the event of compulsory partition. The share of an individual or of a tavazhi is what shall fall to the individual or to the tavazhi, if a division per capita were made of the properties among all the members of the tarwad. The Travancore Ezhava Act III of 1100 also has by S.30, subject to certain restrictions and limitations, conferred a right partition on collateral tavazhies, and on male children and female children wit