The main legal point established in the judgment is that the nature of a transaction should be determined based on its substance and not merely by the name given to it. Additionally, the court clarified the operation of S. 36 in relation to the renewal of the tenancy under the Cochin Tenancy Act, XV of 1113.

1. The plaintiff who is the karnavan of a divided branch of a Nambudiri Illom whose suit for redemption filed on the 24th Karkatakam 1119 numbered as O.S. 746/1119, District Munsiff's Court, Irinjalakuda and the appeal filed by him in the District Court of Anjikaimal (A.S. 404 of 1121) were dismissed, has come up before us in second appeal.

2. The property sought to be redeemed covers an extent of 2 acres and 88 cents of paramba out of a larger area of 3 acres and 60 cents from out of which an extent of 72 cents was assigned by the plaintiff to a stranger. The entire extent of 3 acres 60 cents was demised to the 1st defendant by the plaintiff's Illom on the 13th of Kanni 1084 under Ext. 11 which is called a Kozhuvirakka Panayadharam. The 1st defendant on even date executed an ethir deed in favour of the plaintiff's Illom which is Ext. A. At a partition between the 1st defendant and others (Ext. C) the property was allotted to other parties thereto and the 1st defendant having retained no part of it, remained exparte in the case. The allottees at the partition transferred their parcels and defendants 2, 3, 4 and 17 were the owners at the time of the suit interested in various parcels. They contested the suit by three separate written statements.

3. The plaintiff's case was that the transaction evidenced by Exts. A and III is a possessory mortgage and redeemable as such. Defendants 3 and 4 in the reply to the notice issued by the plaintiff before the suit demanding redemption, having contended that the transaction is a kanam, the plaintiff relied upon the specific ground that the property is required by him for construction of an illom, that is a new house, for his residence to enable him to get the redemption sought even on the basis that the transaction is a kanam. The contentions raised in the case where that the transaction is a kanam and is therefore irredeemable and that the claim to redeem the property for purposes of constructing a house for the plaintiff's residence cannot be allowed because, though the plaintiff got no house in the partition in his illom and wanted a house, that necessity no longer existed, the plaintiff having constructed a house in another item of property which he had and is residing in that new house with family. In the event of a decree for surrender, value of improvements was also claimed.

4. The courts below have concurrently found that the transaction evidenced by Exts. III and A is a Kanam notwithstanding the fact that in Ext. III the name given thereto is a Kozhuvirakka Panayadharam or possessory mortgage. Several circumstances including the one that Ext. III itself is a renewal of an earlier demise, which on the evidence was found to be a kanam, were relied upon in support of this conclusion. Mr. Narayana Menon, the learned counsel for the appellant did not canvass before us the correctness of this conclusion come to by the courts below and rightly so, because giving of the name "possessory mortgage" to a document which otherwise satisfies the requirements of a kanam and which is itself a renewal of an earlier demise which is a kanam cannot operate to convert the transaction into a possessory mortgage. The only point urged by him before us is that the courts below erred in not decreeing redemption because under S. 25(1)(a) of the Cochin Tenancy Act, XV of 1113, the kanamdar is liable to eviction if the holding is required by landlord for the bonafide purposes of building a new house for his residence. The learned Munsiff found that there was a partition in the plaintiff's family in the year 1118 evidenced by Ext. B, that at that partition the plaintiff got no house for his residence and that he therefore, wanted to put up a new residential house, but found that the plaintiff was residing in another house after the partition and concluded "from the mere fact that the plaint property which measures 2 acres, would be more convenient for the purpose of putting up a building, it cannot b