Alienation of unenfranchised inam lands is not absolutely prohibited as unlawful, but subject to resumption by the Government on alienation.

Sadasiva Ayyar, J.

1. The plaintiff is the appellant. This Second Appeal relates only to plaint items 1, 2 6, 7 and 8. He brought the suit for a declaration, among other reliefs, that the attachment and sale of these items of the plaint lands in execution of the money decree against his father, the fourth defendant, are invalid as the lands are unenfranchised inam lands, and as their attachment and sale are prohibited by law. Both lower Courts decided against the plaintiffs contention.

2. The only question argued before us is whether unenfranchised inam lands which had been granted, not for the performance of future services either public or private, but as a pure matter of favour for the maintenance of the donee and his heirs, are incapable of alienation and whether such alienation is prohibited by law or whether such alienation cannot be allowed as being against public policy. In Sundaramurti Mudali v. Vallinayakki Ammal (1868) 1 M.H.C.R., 465, it was held that each holder of a shrotriyam inam which had been granted for only three lives (namely, one Thanappa Mudali, his son, if any, and the sons son, if any), could not be alienated by will by the adopted son of the first grantee (Thanappa Mudali) who died without issue. The grant there seems not to have been of the land itself but only of the land revenue. Scotland, C.J. (with whom Frere, J., concurred), citing the authorities on the subject, which were then few, and after considering the Regulations IV of 1831, XXXI of 1886 and XXIII of 1838, held that shrotriyams are in the nature of estates tail in strict settlement and that alienation to a stranger by will was therefore invalid. There are, however, these two material distinctions between the facts of that case and the facts of the present case: (1) the grant in that case was strictly confined to three generations, whereas in the present case it was a hereditary grant to continue from generation to generation; (2) the grant there was of land revenue to which Madras Regulation IV of 1831 directly applied, whereas the present was a grant of the land itself. The case is therefore not governed by the three regulations mentioned in that case or by the Pensions Act of 1871 which superseded those regulations. (I do not lay stress on the fact that the grant there was called shrotriyam grant, whereas the grant in the present case is called Bhattavrithi grant, as there is no distinction in principle between the two kinds of grants.) In Vissappa v. Ramajogi (1865) 2 M.H.C.R., 341 Holloway and Innes, JJ., criticise Sundaramurti Mudali v. Vallinayakhi Ammal (1868) 1 M.H.C.R., 465 and point out the distinction between public service inams governed by Regulation IV of 1831 which are made statutorily inalienable by Section 2 of that Regulation and mere personal inams, some classes of which inams alone fell under Regulation IV of 1831. It was decided in Vissappa v. Ramajogi (1865) 2M.H.C.R., 341 that the Inam Commissioners certificate and declaration that the inam was inalienable was of no value and that unless there is a statutory prohibition, contracts of alienation would be valid. There, the inam seems to have consisted of the lands themselves and not the land revenue, and the learned Judges distinguish Sundaramurti Mudali v. Vallinayakki Ammal (1863) 1 M.H.C.R., 465 on that ground also. In Gunnaiyan v. Kamakchi Ayyar (1903) I.L.R., 26 Mad., 339 the following observations of Bhashyam Ayyangar, J., occur at page 345:

According to the theory of the common law of the land applicable to hereditary grants of public revenue as inam in favour of individuals and to the interpretation of such Crown grants, succession, in such cases, is or at any rate, is supposed to be limited to the undivided brothers and to the direct lineal heirs, including a daughters son of the last incumbent as also his widow, and failing them, to the direct lineal heirs of the original grantee. And under that law, it is or it is supposed to he, competent for Governm