A Hindu father or other managing member has power to make a gift within reasonable limits of ancestral immoveable property for "pious purposes." This is based on Mitakshara, Ch. I, s. 1, v. 28-29. "Even a single individual may conclude a donation, mortgage, on sale of immoveable property, during a season of distress, for the sake of the family, and especially for pious purposes."

JUDGMENT :- The plaintiff who failed in both the courts below has appealed to this court. He1 brought the suit for recovery of possession of the plaint first schedule properties from the defendant with future mesne profits. The properties originally belonged to one Pooli Sivasubramania Thevar of Nelkattumsevel. On 08-09-1923, he executed a deed of settlement whereby he gave a life interest in the suit properties to Sivagnanathammal whom he proposed at the time and later on married as his second wife, the remainder to his sons, if any, to be born to her, failing which to his son by his first wife by name Pooli Sivagnanapandian and his heirs. Sivagnanathammal died in 1950 issueless and her husband Pooli Sivasubramania Thevar had predecesed her. The plaintiff purchased the property under a sale, deed dated 02-05-1952 from Vellathurai Pandian the son of Pooli Sivagnanapandian. The plaintiffs case was that after the termination of the life estate on the death of Sivagnanathammal, Vellathurais father and after him; Vellathurai, became entitled to the suit properties absolutely and that he was entitled to recover possession thereof from the defendant.

2. The defendants case on the oilier hand was that he got an othi of the plaint second schedule property forming part of the first schedule properties executed by Pooli Sivasubramania Thevar on 09-07-1925, that at the execution of a rent decree obtained against Pooli Sivasubramania in respect of the suit properties, the defendant purchased them under a sale certificate dated 20-10-1934, that right from 1925 he has been in continuous possession of the second schedule and from 1934 the entire suit properties, that the settlement deed relied on by the plaintiff was invalid because it was gift of joint family properties in the hands of Pooli Sivasubramania Thevar in favour of a stranger and was in any case not acted upon by the settlor and his son and that the defendant also had acquired title to the suit properties by adverse possession.

3. Both the courts below found that the settlement deed was not given effect to and was not acted upon and that the properties conveyed thereunder belonged to the joint family of Pooli Sivasubramania Thevar. The lower appellate court differing from the trial court also found that the gift of the joint family properties under the settlement deed in favour of a stranger namely the settlors second wife in anticipation of her marriage was invalid. The lower courts concurrently upheld the validity of the rent sale rejecting the plea of the plaintiff that it was invalid for want of notice to Pooli Sivasubramania Thevar. They also reached the conclusion that in any case the plaintiff was not in possession of the suit properties within 12 years of the plaint and that the defendant had also acquired title by adverse possession over the statutory period.

4. Before me, Sri S.V. Venugopalachari, the learned counsel for the appellant, contended (1) that the finding of the lower courts that the properties covered by the settlement were coparcenery properties, was not supported by any evidence, (2) that even if the properties covered by the settlement deed were joint family properties, the gift thereof by Pooh Sivasubramania Thevar being of a reasonable portion of the joint family properties to his second wife in anticipation of her marriage, was valid under the Hindu law and (3) that the plaintiff himself could recover possession of the suit properties only after 1950 when the life estate in favour of Sivagnanathammal came to an end.

5. On the first point of the learned counsel for the appellant, I have been taken through the entire evidence and I think the learned counsel is not well founded in his contention. D.W. 1 clearly stated that Pooli Sivasubramania Thevar got the suit lands with the income from his ancestral lands of 6 or 7 kottah of Virapadu. No doubt in his cross-examination ho admitted that be did not know if Sivasubramania Thevar and his son were livi