The prevailing sentiment and usages of the community are the governing factors in determining the validity of a marriage and reversion to Hinduism, and the absence of a formal ceremony of reconversion or any other expiatory ceremony is not essential for a person to become a Hindu.

Mockett, J.

1. I concur generally with the judgment which my learned brother is about to deliver, and I am not proposing to restate the facts which are clearly set out in the judgments of the learned Trial Judge and of my learned brother. I desire however to deal with the important question raised by issue 11 in this case which is:

Whether the late G.M. Appalaswami Naidu was a Roman Catholic, not governed by Hindu Law, at the time of his death.

2. After discussing the evidence his Lordship continued.

3. But the whole evidence points to the conclusion that so far as he was concerned - and I use that expression advisedly - he abandoned the Christian religion at the time of his marriage to Appalanarasamma in 1913 and lived and worshipped as a Hindu up to the time of his death and was cremated. None of the defendants have gone into the witness box to deny any of the facts proved by the plaintiff, and it must be emphasised that it has never been suggested from the Bar, although we asked the question, that this was a suit in which the plaintiff and defendants were colluding together to defeat alienees. We obtained that definite assurance because it naturally would be an important element in weighing the evidence in the case. The learned trial Judge too arrived at the conclusion in paragraph 19 of his judgment, that Goona Appalaswami was what is known in some of the southern districts as a caste Christian, that is a Christian by religion but following Hindu customs, manners and habits.

4. On the evidence in this case, I am not prepared to agree with that Minding. The evidence, virtually uncontradicted, shows that Appalaswami from 1913 went far beyond clinging to Hindu customs and associations. He worshipped as a Hindu. There is no suggestion in the evidence that he ever entered a Church after 1913. There is however uncontradicted evidence that he attended temples. It would seem however that the ratio decidendi of the lower Court in this case amounts to this. On the decisions, says the learned Judge there must be a renunciation or renouncement of the new religion and a readmission into the old. Without something definitely done in both these directions, it cannot be said that a Christian can become a Hindu or vice versa.

5. This is of course a case not of conversion to Hinduism but of a Hindu reverting to his original faith. The learned trial Judge takes the view apparently that there must be proof of some formal abandonment of one religion and the adoption of another. We have been referred to the decisions bearing on this topic. Administrator-General of Madras v. Anandachari I.L.R. (1886)9 Mad. 446, is a judgment of Parker, J. In dealing with the possible re-admission of one Kristammal to Brahminism, the learned Judge makes the following remarks:

His conversion to Christianity according to the Hindu Law, rendered him an outcaste and degraded. But according to that law, the degradation, might have been atoned for, and the convert readmitted to his status as a Brahmin, had he at any time during his life renounced Christianity and performed the rites of expiation enjoined by his caste.

6. It seems to me that that statement remains as it is, if the words "if any" are added at the end of the sentence. In 1934, Mr. Justice Varadachariar, decided a case in Gurusami Nadar v. Indappa Konar (1934) 67 M.L.J. 389, and he states:

The language used in Administrator-General of Madras v. Anandachari I.L.R.(1886) 9 Mad. 446, merely refers to the expiatory ceremonies enjoined by the practice of the community in question; and with reference to the class of people we are now concerned with, no suggestion has anywhere been made in the course of the evidence that any particular expiatory ceremonies are observed amongst them. No particular ceremonies are prescribed for them by the Smriti writers nor have they got to perform any Homas. One has therefore only to look at the sense of the community and from that point of view it is of particular significance th