The central legal principle established in the judgment is that the validity of a lease, particularly a melcharth lease, should be assessed based on whether it reserves a reasonable rent, is granted in the ordinary course of business, and does not violate established legal principles governing similar types of leases.

Napier, J.

1. This is a suit by a melcharth-dar from the stani, the 4th Raja of Calicut, to recover from certain persons in possession of land under verumpatom lease the properties demised in the melcharth; the melcharthdar is the second plaintiff, the demisor being the 1st plaintiff. The 5th defendant in the suit is a person to whom a melcharth had been granted by the predecessor of the 1st plaintiff with respect to the same properties and the plaintiffs claim that that demise was bad and not binding on the present 1st plaintiff as having been given without any consideration and for the purpose of depriving the 1st plaintiff of his lawful income and not for the purpose of the stani. This question was made the subject of the 7th issue, namely, whether the lease relied on by the 5th defendant is valid and binding on the plaintiffs." We have already held in Second Appeals Nos. 581, 582 and 608 of 1916 that the property was held by the defendants in possession on a verumpatom lease and that they were, therefore, liable to surrender it. But the question we have to decide in this case is whether the prior melcharth granted to the 5th defendant is valid, because, if so, the present 2nd plaintiff has no title on which he can sue. The matter was considered carefully by the District Munsif, who held that the first melcharth was good. But it has been pointed out to us that the lower Appellate Court has not given a finding on this issue No. 7, having overlooked the necessity for it as the Court dealt with these cases and the prior cases Second Appeals Nos. 581, 582 and 608 of 1916 in the same judgment.

2. The point urged by Mr. Subramania Sastri is really a point of law although it has to be applied to the facts of this case, and as we have those facts before us and as they are not really in dispute, we propose to act under Section 103 of the Code of Civil Procedure and determine this issue ourselves. The argument put forward by Mr. Subramania Sastri is, that anything beyond a lease for a single year by a stani is voidable unless it has been shown to have been for the necessity of the stani. And he has invited our attention to a long series of cases beginning with two of the Sudder Adawlat Court. Those two cases are quoted in Moores Malabar Law, Page 353, the subject being dealt with by the learned author from Page 348. We do not think that those two cases really lay down anything in title way of a general proposition. They seem to me to have been decided on the facts of each case and are cases where a Zamorin practically on his deathbed and a Raja of Palghat, who had just suffered from a paralytic stroke, endeavoured to defraud the person who would come into possession of the estate in a few months of the whole of what he might legitimately expect to get from the property. Great reliance has naturally been placed by Mr. Subramania Sastri on the decision of the Privy Council Venkateshwara Iyen v. Shekhari Varma (1) 3 M. 384: 5 Ind. Jur. 542 : 8 I. A. 143 : 4 Sar. P. C. J. 259 : 1 Ind. Dec (N.S.) 822. but I do not think that their Lordships intended to lay down that every lease, for however short a term, must be governed by the same rules as they applied in that case. That was a perpetual lease of stanom lands by a Raja, and their Lordships say with regard to that: The stanomdar represents the corpus of his stanom much in the same way as a Hindu widow represents the estates which have devolved upon her, and he may alienate the property for the benefit or proper expenses of the stanom." Now I think it is clear that in using this language their Lordships were referring to alienations by sale and mortgage by a Hindu widow in circumstances which have been held to be binding on the reversioners, and I do not think that they had in their minds in the very slightest the granting of a lease for the purposes of the cultivation of the stanom property. Even this proposition has been held in a later case not to be of universal application, for