Rajagopalan, J.-This appeal arose out of the rejection of the claim preferred by the appellant as the petitioner in O.P. No. 17 of 1953, on the file of the Estates Abolition Tribunal, Vellore, for payment out to him of a portion of the amount deposited with the Tribunal as advance compensation for the Bevuhalli Mitta Estate in Salem district, taken over by the Government under the provisions of Madras Act XXVI of 1948.

Bevuhalli Mitta, which was an estate as defined by the Madras Estates Land Act, belonged to Mohamed Salia Sahib. In 1906 he executed a deed of gift, a copy of which is marked in evidence as Exhibit A-1, in favour of his two sons Azizulla and Inayatullah and his daughter Amirunnisa. It is the scope and validity of the gifts made under this document that arise for determination in this appeal. For the present it should be sufficient to note that he gifted the corpus of the property, Bevuhalli Mitta, to his two sons Azizulla and Inayatullah. The donor directed them however to pay Rs. 500 a year to himself for his life. He further directed them to pay Rs. 350 a year out of the income of the Bevuhalli Mitta to his daughter Amirunnisa, which he described as a gift he made to her under that document. Exhibit A-1 recorded that the donees were put in possession of the items of properties gifted to them. It was common ground that the annual payments were made both to the donor and to Amirunnissa under the terms of Exhibit A-1 from the date of that document.

The donor Salia Sahib died in 1909. It was common ground that all the interest of Inayatullah under Exhibit A-1 devolved on Azizulla. Respondents 2 to 12 before us are the legal representatives of the deceased Azizullah. Amriunnissa died on 8th February, 1950, and the appellant, petitioner in O.P. No. 17 of 1953, is her son and heir.

Bevuhalli Mitta was taken over by the Government on 12th January, 1951, and a sum of Rs. 11,877, was deposited as advanced compensation. Out of that amount the appellant claimed Rs. 1050 which represented the total of the annual payments of Rs 350 due for the three faslis 1359, 1360 and 1361 under the terms of Exhibit A-1. He also claimed that he was entitled to payment of Rs. 350 a year in perpetuity from and after fasli 1362.

The Tribunal rejected the claims of the appellant. It held that the gift of Amirunnissa, the predecessor-in-interest of the appellant, was invalid under the Muslim Law by which the parties were governed. That conclusion was based on two grounds, (1), that the annual payment of Rs. 350 represented a musha or undivided share in the property that had been gifted and (2) the income from the Mitta was property that was to come into existence in future, of which immediate possession could not have been given and was not given to the donee Amirunnissa, and a gift thereof was invalid. The Tribunal rested its decision on the principle laid down in Amtal Nissa v. Nurudin1.

The contention of the learned counsel for the appellant was that on the terms of Exhibit A-1 neither of those ground was correct, and that the Tribunal overlooked the basic difference drawn by Muhammadan Law between the corpus (Ayn) and the usufruct (Manafi), each of which could be the subject-matter of stipulations in a deed of gift, even if that gift was styled by the donor as Hiba.

Before we examine these contentions it is desirable to set out the relevant terms of Exhibit A-1, to verify what was it that was gifted and who were the donees.

The preamble in Exhibit A-1 set out that it was a Hibbanama; and the donees enumerated were Azizulla, Inayatulah and Amirunnissa. Exhibit A-1 recorded that possession of the gifted properties had been delivered to the donees. The stipulation for the annual payment thereafter to the donor ran:

"But so long as I should be alive, for my expenses, etc., the first and second of you, namely Mir Mohamed Azizullah Sahib and Mil Mohamad Inayatulah Sahib shall pay me Rs. 500 annually on or before the 20th of June and obtain from me the

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