The main legal point established in the judgment is that the widows power of adoption comes to an end when the estate is vested in a person capable of continuing the line of succession, and the adoption's validity depends on its effect on property devolution and the continuation of the lineage.

Oldfield, J.

1. One Ramasami Sastri died, leaving joint and separate property. Subsequently his widow under an authority given by him adopted two boys in succession, the second, now plaintiff-respondent, after the death of the first at the age of four. The question is whether plaintiff is entitled against 1st defendant, here appellant, the undivided brother of Eamasami Sastri, to a share in the joint property by partition and to the latters separate property by inheritance. It is conceded that the widow would not be debarred merely by the failure of the first adoption from making a second; and it is not disputed that authority would be in plaintiffs favour, if there were only separate property. The question is whether he is entitled to a share in the joint property. Considerations of convenience and symmetry are on his side, since it would be anomalous that his adoption should be recognized to enable him to inherit one description of property and not to entitle him to partition of the other. It is not however necessary to resort to those considerations in order to find ground for a decision in his favour.

2. At page 251, Maynes Hindu Law and Usage, 8th edition, the rules deducible from the authorities regarding divestiture of estates in consequence of adoption are stated. But it is better to attempt to reach the principle, on which such rules may be founded, if only because the learned authors references to the divesting of estates are not always strictly applicable to joint family property, such as is now in dispute. That principle has been formulated differently on each side. 1st defendant contends that the widow can adopt after the estate of a deceased adopted son or other person entitled has intervened between the death of her husband and the date of the adoption, only if she has herself succeeded in the absence of a successor to such son or person; plaintiff that the principle is, as stated by Chandavarkar, J., in Ramkrishna v. Shama Rao (1902) I.L.R. 26 Bom. 526, that, "where a Hindu dies leaving a widow and a son and that son dies leaving a natural born or an adopted son or leaving no son, but his own widow to continue the line by means of adoption, the power of the former widow is extinguished and cannot afterwards be revived". And this must, it will be seen, be extended to cases, in which the son did not actually leave a widow or give his widow authority, but died after reaching an age, at which he was capable of doing either. Shortly the decisive consideration is on the one view the existence at the date of the disputed adoption of some one, other than the adopting widow, immediately entitled to the estate; on the other the previous extinction of the widows power in consequence of other possibilities of the continuance of the line having arisen, In the present case on the one hand 1st defendant is such a person; but on the other, the first adopted son having died at the age of four, no such possibilities are in question and the widows power is still exercisable.

3. The point does not fall to be decided on any text; and the doubt regarding it arises from the alleged ambiguity of the earliest authority on it, Chundrabullees case (1865) 10 M.I.A. 279. The question arose there between the son adopted by the widow of and the sons widow of one Gour Kishore, no co-parcener being in question. The material part of the judgment consists first in reference to the extinction of the widows power, to the sons marriage, to his having lived to an age, which enabled him to perform ceremonies for his fathers benefit or to adopt a son; and his failure to actually beget or adopt a son is explicity treated as immaterial. All this supports plaintiffs argument. But there follows a reference, on which 1st defendant relies, to the facts that the sons widow had acquired a right to the estate and that in her absence Gour Kishores widow would by the adoption have divested no estate but her own. And defendants contention is no doubt reconc