JUDGMENT

Banerji, J. - The suit in which this appeal has arisen was brought by the respondents for the establishment of their right as reversioners to the estate of one Madho Singh, and for a declaration that the alleged adoption of the appellant by Madho Singh was void and ineffectual. One of the grounds on which the alleged adoption was impeached was that the appellant was the son of the sister of Madho Singhs mother. The Court below having held the adoption alleged by the appellant to be invalid, this appeal has been preferred, and the only question which we have to consider and. determine is whether the adoption of the mother's sister's son by a person belonging to one of the three regenerate classes is valid according to Hindu law. The parties are Thakurs, that is, members of the regenerate class of Kshatriyas. It is not alleged that an adoption such as has been set up in this case valid according to any special custom prevailing in the caste or in the locality to which the parties belong. The case, therefore, must be decided solely with reference to the rules of Hindu law which govern adoption, and independently of any positive custom other than such as may be presumed to be in existence consistently with Hindu law.

2. It is not disputed, and indeed it was conceded in argument, that the principles which apply to the question of the adoption of a daughter's son or a sister's son apply equally to the adoption of the mother's sister's son, and that if the adoption of a daughter's son or a sister's son is void among the three higher classes, it is equally void in the case of the mother's sister's son. I may also observe that as regards the present question there is no divergence between the Mitakshara School and the other schools of Hindu law, or between the different sections of the Mitakshara School, and that the rules of law affecting the present question are alike applicable to the different schools. There is also no difference as regards the application of those rules between Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas. It is important to bear these facts in mind in considering the question which we have to decide upon this reference.

3. The question is one of great importance, affecting as it does a large section of the Hindu community, and in determining it I shall consider, first the authority of decided cases; secondly, the authority of modern writers on Hindu law, European and native; and thirdly, the authority of the Dharma Sastras, including that of commentators. I attach the greatest importance to the authority of decided cases, because if they have been uniform and consistent and have extended over a long series of years, the presumption, in my opinion, arises that they have been submitted to and accepted as correctly laying down the law on the subject, and that the usages of the people have been regulated in accordance with them. The rule of stare decisis has always been regarded as a very salutary rule, and it should, in my judgment, be applied even to questions of Hindu law, unless it can be shown that the consensus of opinions expressed in the decided cases was based on a grossly erroneous interpretation of the law, or on a total misconception of what the law really is,--a misconception induced by erroneous translations of original texts inaccessible to the Judges, and misrepresentations as to their true meaning and scope. I would go further and hold that even if in some instances the rulings may have been founded on doubtful authorities, they should not, if they have been uniform, and have covered a long period of time, be departed-from, even at the risk of perpetuating an error, provided that the error was not so gross and clear as to negative the presumption of acquiescence and usage to which I have referred above. "For" to quote the words of Dr. (now Mr. Justice) Guru Das Banerji (Tagore Law Lectures for 1879, p. 16) " though it is wrong to perpetuate an error, it would hardly be right to rectify the error by unsett