The lack of privity of estate between reversioners and the entitlement of a remote reversioner to sue if the nearer reversioners have precluded themselves from suing.

Benson, J.

1. The plaintiff, who is a minor, sued, as reversioner, for a declaration that an alienation of the plaint property by the 1st defendant, who is a Hindu widow, is invalid as against him after the death of the widow. The District Munsif gave (the declaration asked for, but the District Judge dismissed the suit on the ground that it was barred by limitation as the plaintiffs father did not bring any suit (though it was open to him to do so) and any such suit by the father would now be barred by time and a suit by the son must a fortiori be also barred.

2. The District Judge refers to Ayyadorai Pillai v. Solai Ammal I.L.R. 24 M. 405 as an authority for his view. But that case refers to an adoption which introduces an heir into a family and effects a change of status and is thus very different from a, mere transfer of property and attention was specially drawn to this distinction by the learned Judges who decided Ayyadorai Pillai v. Solai Animal I.L.R. 24 M. 405. The District Judge seems also to have had in view the case of Chhaganram Astikram v. Bai Motigavri I.L.R. 14 B. 512 which is referred to by the District Munsif and which is directly in support of the view taken by the District Judge. The correctness of that decision, however, may well be doubted for the reasons stated by the Full Bench of the Allahabad High Court in the case of Bhagwanta v. Sukhi I.L.R. 22 A. 33. It was there pointed out by a Full Bench of six Judges that where, as in this case, the plaintiff would not be entitled to immediate possession if the female having a life estate should die on the date of the institution of the suit, the article of the Limitation Act applicable is not No. 125, but No. 120, which allows a suit to be brought within six years from the date when the right to sue accrued. It was also pointed out that when there are several reversioners, as in this case, entitled successively to succeed to an estate held for life by a Hindu widow, no one of such reversioners can be held to claim through or to derive his title from another reversioner, even if that other happens to be his father, but each derives his title from the last full owner; that the right of each to sue for a declasation cannot accrue before he is born and that a person, who is a minor at the date of the alienation or who is born subsequently during the life of the widow, is entitled to the benefit of Section 7 of the Limitation Act.

3. We think that that decision is correct. There is no privity of estate between one reversioner and another as such and therefore, an act or omission by one reversioner cannot bind another reversioner who does not claim through him.

4. The reasons, therefore, given by the District Judge for dismissing the plaintiffs suit are, we think untenable.

5. It is, however, contended for the respondents that the decree of the District Judge ought to be sustained for other reasons, viz., (1) because the plaintiff, as a remote reversioner, has no right to sue while a nearer reversioner is alive and (2) because the suit is one in which the court, in the exercise of its discretionary power, under Section 42 of the Specific Relief Act, ought to refuse to make a declaratory decree in the plaintiffs favour even if he has the right to sue.

6. The widows husband died in 1870. The alienation was first made by a mortgage in 1871. This mortgage, it is found by the courts below, was supported by necessity only to the extent of Rs. 75. It was followed by another mortgage in 1875 in discharge of the former mortgage and this by a court sale in 1884 in execution of a decree obtained on the mortgage. The plaintiff was born in 1883, some 12 years after the first mortgage. He is a remote reversions of the third grade. There are reversioners (2nd and 3rd defendants) of the 2nd grade and apparently reversioners of the 1st grade also alive.

7. None of these have questioned the alienation and their right to do so by a declaratory suit is now in each case barred by limit