Re-conveyance done by widow under gift deed during pendency of the suit.

This Second Appeal raises an interesting question of law about the applicability of section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act (Central Act XXX of 1956), hereinafter referred to as the Act. The brief facts of the case are:

The properties involved in the suit belonged to one Govindaraju Goundan, who died about thirty years ago. The plaintiff and the first defendant are his brothers while the third defendant is his widow. The second defendant is the son of the first defendant, and he has married the third defendant’s brother’s daughter. The third defendant who was in possession of her husband’s properties conveyed the same to the second defendant under a registered deed of gift, Exhibit B-1, dated 1st June, 1948. On 2nd September, 1958 the plaintiff, as the nearest reversioner of Govindaraju Goundan, filed the suit for a declaration that the gift deed in favour of the second defendant would not be binding on the reversion after the death of the widow. Two months later, while the suit was pending, the second defendant, the settlee under Exhibit B-1, conveyed back the properties to the widow under Exhibit B-2, dated 12th November, 1958. On behalf of the widow, the third defendant, the objection was raised that by reason of this reconveyance under Exhibit B-2, and section 14 (1) of the Hindu Succession Act, she had become the absolute owner of the properties, and that the plaintiff is not entitled to continue the suit as a reversioner of Govindaraju Goundan. In other words, the plea of the third defendant was that as a result of the reconveyance the properties became hers and the plaintiff cannot make any claim thereto, whether immediate or contingent, as a reversioner of Govindaraju.

The trial Court held that the material date was the date when the suit was filed, and that the widow was not in possession of the properties of her husband, that the plaintiff, the reversioner was entitled to the declaration, and that the reconveyance during the pendency of the suit would not in any way affect the right of the reversioner to obtain a declaration that the alienation would not bind the reversionary interest after the lifetime of the widow. But on appeal the learned Subordinate Judge came to a contrary conclusion and allowed the appeal, holding that the plaintiff was not entitled to continue the suit and no declaration can be made in his favour. The plaintiff has preferred this Second Appeal.

Though some argument was advanced in the Courts below that the widow herself was in possession of the property despite the settlement, Exhibit B-1, learned Counsel on both sides accepted the position that from 1948, the date of the settlement, till the reconveyance the widow had no possession of the properties, and that it was with the settlee, the second defendant.

Learned Counsel for the appellant placed considerable reliance upon the Bench decision of this Court in Marudakkal v. Arumugha Goundar1, and the other decisions in which the view was taken that where prior to the commencement of the Hindu Succession Act the limited owner in possession of her husband’s estate had alienated the properties without necessity and for purposes not binding upon the estate, and if the alienee was in possession of the properties on the date when the Act came into force, the reversioner to the estate would be entitled to obtain a declaration that the alienation will not bind the reversioner and that section 14 of the Act had not the effect of converting the alienee’s title to the alienated properties, into an absolute and indefeasible one. Applying the ratio of this decision learned Counsel for the appellant contended that the material date for determining the plaintiff’s right to obtain a declaration was the date of the suit, and that if on that date he" was entitled to obtain such a declaration, section 14 had no application, because the widow was not in possession of the properties, and that right which inhered in the plaintiff on the date of the suit cannot