The judgment established the principle that an appropriation for private purposes of properties attached to a religious office is illegal, and a document intended to convert such properties into family properties may not be valid.

Sadasiva Aiyar, J.

1. The plaintiff is the appellant. He brought this suit for maintenance against his brother, the defendant on the ground that both parties belonged to an Aliyasanthana family and that the defendant was in possession of the family properties as Yejman of the family and failed to give him maintenance. The defendant contended that he was not in possession of any property as Yejman of the family but only of certain properties as the person appointed by the Kulur Magane community to the Pattam of Kulur Bidu. The second issue raised was "whether the suit properties belong to the Aliyasanthana family of which the defendant is Yejman or to Kulur Bidu Pattam as alleged by the defendant.

2. At the trial, the plaintiff seems to have argued that, though the properties belonged to the Kulur Bidu Pattam, the Pattam itself belonged to the family, and hence the properties also belonged to the family ; and for this contention he relied upon the Vyavasta Patra, Ex. A, dated 1899; executed between the defendant and the father of the plaintiff and of the defendant who was the previous pattamdar. This document, according to the plaintiff made both the pattam and the property attached to it the family property of the plaintiffs mothers branch of their Aliyasanthana family. This pattam right has to be conferred by the Maghava villagers though they are bound by custom to bestow it upon a member of the Aliyasanthana family to which the last holder belonged; and on the non-existence of any such member, they can bestow it on anybody they like. This pattam is indeed in some respects analogous to the stanam in Malabar. But from the evidence it appears that it is not (like a stanam) a mere dignity to which no obligations or duties are attached. On the other hand, the plaintiff himself in his evidence as PLalntiffs witness No. 1 says "My father resigned the Kulur Bidu Pattam as he could not attend to the cermonies there--the three ceremonies I have meantioned above;" than he says in another place "There are annual ceremonies to be performed by the pattam holder - Mahalaya, Kambla and Puddarada mechi nema." Then he says as regards the "nema" ceremoney, " The nema cermony lasts 3 days. All the Maghava people have to be invited for the ceremony." It appears from the defence evidence that several other cermonies, - Ashtami, Vinayaka Chathurthi and others, have also to be performed by the pattam office-holder at some expense. The villagers who installed the pattam-holder in his office have to be invited and fed, or at least given cocoanuts according to the evidence. Thus, whereas the stani succeeds to the. stanom by reason of his being the next eldest member of the family next to the deceased stance, that is not the case with this pattam dignity which rather partakes of the nature of an office to which the villagers appoint a man after an elaborate ceremony and the duties of which office are defined and entail expense out of the income derived from the lands forming the emoluments of the office.

3. As I said, the plaintiff admits that his father resigned the office because he was unable to perform the duties attached to it. That was in 1894 ; and the defendant was appointed to the office at once during his fathers life-time.

4. The next question is whether junior members of the family of the pattam-holder can claim maintenance out of the income of the pattam lands. As I said, the holder of a pattam is in a less advantageous position than the holder of a stanam so far as his rights are concerned in the properties attached to the pattam. So far as the holder of a stanam is concerned, he becomes cut off for the time being from connection with his main tarwad; the other members of his tarwad have no right whatever to or in the stanam properties. It seems to me that a fortiori the plaintiff1cannot claim any interest in the pattam properties and it follows that he has no right to get maintenance out of the income of the properties. But it was ar