The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement of a benefit received under a joint will for it to be irrevocable.

Arnold White, C.J.

1. In this case one Sub-bier and one Sesha Amtnal who were the father and the mother of the defendant in the suit and the grandfather and grandmother of the plaintiff (the plaintiff being the son of the defendant) made a joint will in December 1897.

2. In the year 1899 the testator died. In the year 1904 the testatrix executed a gift to her daughter, the defendant, of the amount which the plaintiff in the present suit claims he is entitled to recover from the defendant as a legacy bequeathed to him by the will.

3. Now if the testatrixs will is irrevocable, and that is the view taken by the District Judge, the plaintiff is entitled to succeed.

4. If, on the other hand, the testatrixs will is " revocable " it must be taken that it had been duly revoked or superseded by the gift in 1904 to the defendant and the plaintiff is not entitled to succeed.

5. That was the view taken by the District Munsif who dismissed the suit.

6. The will is to this effect. It recites that the testator and the testatrix have no male heirs and have only female heirs and that they have made the arrangements set forth in the will so that their daughters and their heirs may have no misunderstandings after their death in respect of the Immovable and moveable properties possessed by them. Then the will proceeds to refer to properties of the value of Rs. 800, which belonged to the testator, and to property of the value of Rs. 1,200 which belonged to the testatrix making Rs. 2,000 in all. Then the two properties are dealt with together. Out of the Rs. 2,000 one daughter is to take Rs. 800 and pay Rs. 400 to another daughter. The eldest daughter is to take Rs. 1,200 and out of that pay Rs. 400 to another daughters son. Then the will further provides that the heirs of the eldest daughter--the eldest daughter being the mother of the plaintiff-shall perform the funeral ceremony and that the eldest daughter shall pay Rs. 400 to the plaintiff after the funeral ceremonies. We will take it that the plaintiff fulfilled the condition precedent as regards the performance of the funeral ceremonies. If, therefore, the disposition under the will is irrevocable he is entitled to recover this Rs. 400.

7. The law with regard to the question we have to decide is laid down in Theobald on Wills, 6th Edn., p. 17--"Persons may make joint wills which are, however, revocable at any time by either of them or by the survivor." * * "A joint will may be made to take effect after the death of both testators; and if the joint will is not a disposition by each testator of his own property but a disposition of joint property after the death of the survivor, the will cannot be proved till the death of the survivor." * ** * It seems that two persons may agree to make mutual wills which remain revocable during the joint lives of either with notice to the other, but become irrevocable after the death of one of them if the survivor takes advantage of the provisions made by the other. A similar statement of the law is to be found in Williams on Executors, 10 Edn., p. 94, and in Jarman on Wills, 1893, 5th Edn, Vol. I, page 27.

8. With regard to the authorities, so far as I am aware, the only authority which can be said in any way to support the contention advanced by the plaintiff, who is the respondent before us, is a judgment of Lord Camden which is very shortly reported in a case in Chancery decided so long ago as 1769 (Dufour v. Pereira (1769) Dick. 419. That case, however, was discussed and distinguished in the later case of Walpole v. Orford (1797) 30 Eng. Rep. 1076 and the decision in that case is clearly against the plaintiffs contention that the will is irrevocable. The Privy Council case Denyssen v. Mostert (1872) L.R. 4 P.C. 236 is an appeal from the Cape of Good Hope, and it turns at any rate to some extent on questions of Roman and Dutch Law. So far as I know, there is nothing in that case which helps the contention put forward on behalf of the plaintiff. But the mos