The main legal point established in the judgment is the significance of the property owner's intention in determining the nature of the property under Hindu Law. The court emphasized the need for clear evidence of the owner's intention to waive or surrender his special right in the property, especially in cases of self-acquired property and joint family property.

Kumaraswami Sastri, J.

1. The plaintiff is the appellant. The 2nd defendant is the adopted son of the plaintiff and the 1st defendant is an attaching creditor who obtained a decree against the 2nd defendant and attached the. 2nd defendants interest in the house and ground now in dispute, alleging that the property is the joint family property of the plaintiff and the 2nd defendant and that the 2nd defendant? is entitled to a, half share therein. The plaintiffs case is that the property is his self-acquisition and that the 2nd defendant has no interest. He filed a claim which was disallowed and hence the suit out of which this appeal arises.

2. The plaintiff adopted the 2nd defendant in the year 1914, when he was about 10 years old. The finding of the Subordinate Judge which is amply supported by the evidence is that the only property which the plaintiff and his brothers got from their father was a thatched house and that all the other properties to which the plaintiff is now entitled are his self-acquisitions. As his finding is not disputed by the respondents except to the extent that the house now attached though built out of self-acquisition has become joint family property owing to its having been built on the ancestral house site it is not necessary to refer to the evidence in detail.

3. It is contended by the appellant that the learned Subordinate Judge was wrong in finding that any portion of the house stands on the ancestral house site on which the thatched house stood. He states that the thatched house was on a plot adjacent to the land on which the house in question was built, that it was only about 10 or 12 feet broad and is now a pathway, the old thatched house, a shed, having fallen down several years ago. His case is that he got the site on which the house is built on partition from his brother who purchased the site.

4. We do not think the appellant has "made out this case. Plaintiff admits that the disputes which led to the partition between himself and his brother were in 1891, that there was an arbitration and a "muri" evidencing the partition. This muri is not produced nor is there any document showing that the plot was purchased by his brother. No accounts are produced to evidence the purchase by the brother and there is nothing except the plaintiffs statement to show that the land on which the house stands was the self-acquisition of the plaintiffs brother which plaintiff got on partition.

5. The probabilities are against this story. It is hardly likely that the site on which the thatched ancestral house stood was only 10 or 12 feet broad, especially as the evidence shows that several members were living in it and that plaintiffs marriage was celebrated in it. It appears from the evidence that what the plaintiff says is a pathway has really been incorporated in the house. There is an arch put up and there are steps on it leading to the house. The Subordinate Judge does not believe the evidence on plaintiffs side as to the house being built on a site acquired by plaintiff from his brother and we do not see sufficient grounds to differ from him.

6. There can be little doubt that the house on the site was built by the plaintiff long before the adoption out of his self-acquisitions. When he built the house he was the sole owner of the site and had no co-parceners who had any claim. The site when he built was worth very little, the thatched house which stood on it having fallen down and the question is whether the fact that he built on the site a house worth according to the evidence Rs. 30,000 or Rs. 40,000"would give his adopted son, who was adopted long afterwards and who never contributed5 anything, a claim to a half share. The 2nd defendant far from earning anything got into bad ways and incurred debts.

7. The only grounds on which the 2nd defendant can acquire any interest in the house are (1) that the plaintiff though he built the house with his own funds made it joint family property because he built it