An assignment by a lunatic found by inquisition is of no effect while the inquisition is in force, and the management of the property is entrusted to another party by the Court.

Krishnan Pandalai, J.

1. This suit was brought on a mortgage dated 10th August, 1917, by the plaintiff as assignee from the mortgagee, the 6th defendant. Defendants 1 to 3 are the mortgagors. The 4th defendant since deceased was the father of the mortgagee and the 5th defendant is the son-in-law of the 4th defendant. The questions in dispute in this case arose from an order by the District Judge of Tinnevelly adjudging the 6th defendant a lunatic by an interim order dated 28th October, 1919, which was confirmed after security given on 16th January, 1920, by which the 4th defendant, his father, was appointed guardian of the person and manager of the property of the 6th defendant. The assignment by the 6th defendant of the mortgage was dated 11th June, 1923, i.e., some three and a half years after the order in lunacy and while it was still in force. The 6th defendant soon after the assignment, i.e., on 17th July, 1923, applied to have the order against himself set aside and it was set aside on 31st August, 1923, on the ground that he had ceased to be insane.

2. The dispute in the case was based upon two contentions. First, the 5th defendant contended that the same mortgage right had been assigned to him by the deceased 4th defendant acting as the guardian of his lunatic son in March, 1919, and that therefore the 6th defendant was himself incompetent to assign it a second time. This assignment both the Lower Courts have rejected as affording any valid defence because the 4th defendant was not authorised to transfer the property of his son even though the latter were a lunatic because at the time of the alleged assignment he had not been appointed manager of the property and in fact had not even applied to be so appointed.

3. The other defence of the mortgagors, defendants 1 to 3, was that the plaintiffs assignment gave him no right to sue because it was executed at a time when the lunacy order was in force and when the management of the lunatics property was entrusted to the 4th defendant who was appointed manager by the Court. On this question the District Munsif has really not said anything definite because he did not consider the question in that way. But he seemed to have considered that the order in lunacy was itself incorrect because it appeared to him to have been procured to defeat a suit brought against the 6th defendant by a creditor on a promissory note. On that ground he held that the 6th defendant was never really insane and that therefore the plaintiffs assignment was valid. As to this, however, although an order in lunacy is not a judgment which is conclusive against the world as one of the judgments enumerated in Section 41 of the Evidence Act it is still relevant and binding upon the parties thereto and those who claim under them just like any other judgment of a Civil Court. On that ground, to put it at the lowest, it is not open to the 6th defendant now to contend that the order finding that he was a lunatic on the date of the order was incorrect and the plaintiff who claims by a subsequent alienation of the 6th defendants property is in the same circumstance. The plaintiff being therefore bound by the order as far as it goes, the real question is how far it does go? On the one hand the appellant says that in spite of the order it is open to a subsequent alienee from a lunatic so found on inquisition to show that at the time of the alienation the lunacy did not exist. On the contrary the respondents contend that a subsequent alienee is not entitled to give such proof because the alienation by the lunatic who has been found such by inquisition is of no effect whatever as the management of the property is by Court entrusted to the hands of the mortgagor. This is really the only question in the appeal although several matters have been extensively argued. On this point there seems to be no Indian authority directly in point. The cases in Debi Charan v. Raghuber Dayal (1912) 16 I.C. 885 Bishambar Nath v. Parba