The main legal point established in the judgment is that the acceptance of a will by the surviving coparcener can validate a dedication of properties to charitable uses, and the testator's intentions play a crucial role in determining the validity of the will.

Leach, C.J.

1. In these appeals the Court is called upon to decide the effect of the will of one Sundaram, who died in the month of July 1983. The testator had two sons, Shanmugam and Sethuraman, and a daughter, the plaintiff in the two suits which have given rise to the appeals. Shanmugam predeceased his father. He left a widow Swar-navalli, but no issue. Sethuraman died on 23rd February 1936 and Swarnavalli in March 1940. Sundaram executed a will dated 29th January 1933 in which he purported to leave for charitable purposes the net income of the properties described in the document, after deducting certain sums for the maintenance of his son Sethuraman and his daughter-in-law Swarnavalli. The properties were described by the testator as being his own. One of the questions in the appeals is whether the properties belonged to the joint family. Another question is assuming that the testator had the right to dispose of the properties by a will, whether the directions amounted to a dedication to charitable uses or merely created a charge for such uses. It is quite clear that the testator intended that Sethuraman and Swarnavalli should act as trustees of the charities mentioned in the will, and that they did so act has been found as a fact. It is also said on behalf of the appellants that even if the properties belonged to the joint family, as the Subordinate Judge has found, the plaintiff is not in a position to challenge the validity of the endowments as Sethuraman accepted as being valid the provisions of the will and acted as a trustee of the charities named therein.

2. In O.S. No. 90 of 1942, filed on 18th November 1942, namely, two years and eight months after the death of Swarnavalli, the plaintiff claimed the estate as the heir of her brother on the basis that the will was invalid She averred that her father had torn up the will. This allegation was entirely false and it is now accepted on her behalf that her father did leave the will relied upon by the defendants and that it was executed by him when in full possession of his faculties. In this suit the plaintiff sought to set aside certain alienations of properties covered by the will for which Swarnavalli was responsible when she was acting as the sole trustee of the charities declared in the will after her husbands death. Appeal No. 113 of 1944 is from the decree passed in O.S. No. 90 of 1942. The appellants are defendants 5 and 6, who are two of the alienees. The plaintiff filed Order Section No. 15 of 1943 to recover another lot of property alleged by her to belong to her fathers estate. It was in the possession of defendant 2, who claimed to be a usufructuary mortgagee of it. The mortgage had been created by Swarnavalli after her husbands death and the plaintiff said that it was invalid. The suit was decreed and Appeal No. 43C of 1914 is the result. The two suits were dealt with in a common judgment. The appeals can also be dealt with together.

3. The Subordinate Judges findings may be summarised as follows : (1) The will set up by the defendants had been executed by Sundaram when in a sound disposing state of mind and it had not been revoked; (2) the will was invalid because the properties disposed of by it were not the separate properties of the testator, but belonged to the joint family; (3) assuming the will to be binding on the plaintiff, it merely created a charge in favour of the charities mentioned in it; (4) Swarnavalli had no title to any of the properties left by her father-in-law and therefore conveyed no title to the alienees; (5) the alienees were not bona fide purchasers or mortgagees, as the case might be, as they had not made proper inquiries with regard to the title of Swarnavalli to convey or mortgage and (6) the alienations were not binding on the plaintiff who was entitled to a decree for possession as the heir of her deceased brother Sethuraman.

4. In the first place, we will deal with the question whether the properties covered by the will