JUDGMENT

Mohd Sharif, J. - The following question has been referred to the Full Bench for decision:

If a widow alienates the self-acquired property of her husband with the consent of her daughter, does such a consent debar her son from challenging the alienation?

2. No case directly dealing with the point in issue was cited before us, but a somewhat similar question arose in Ali Mohamad v. Mt. Mughlani reported as A.I.R.1946 Lah.180. There the alienation by a widow succeeding under custom to a life estate was assented to by the next male reversioner and at p. 191 it was observed as follows:

For the reasons given above, it must be held that a gratuitous alienation by a widow of her husband's self-acquired or ancestral property with the consent of the next reversioner is not valid and can be challenged by a remoter reversioner provided his suit is not altogether a speculative one; in other words, a considerable number of other reversioners do not intervene between him and the presumptive reversioner. Hawever, so far as the consenting reversioner and persons deriving title from him are concerned they cannot challenge the alienation and obtain a declaration that it is invalid. When a declaration is granted to a remote reversioner in the circumstances of any particular case, the decree should clearly provide that the 'declaratory decree will not enure for the benefit of the consenting reversioner or of persons deriving title through him. There is another rider that must be added to the rule enunciated above concerning non-ancestral property. Qua such property, the widow's alienation will become indefeasible in case succession opens out during the lifetime of the immediate reversioner who has given his consent and he becomes vested with the inheritance. The reason for this proviso is that as soon as the widow dies or succession opens out in any other manner, the immediate reversioner who has given his consent comes into possession of the estate and concerning non-ancestral part of it he enjoys power of absolute, disposal. "Punjab Act (I [1] of 1920) has placed a statutory impediment in the way of next reversioners and has declared that they have no right to challenge alienations of non-ancestral property by a male owner. That being so, his consent to the widow's alienation in respect to her husband's self-acquired property, in cases where the consenting reversioner acquires the estate by inheritance, cures all defects that may have existed in the alience's title on the equitable rule given statutory recognition in Section 18, Specific Relief Act, and applied in exactly similar circumstances in a considerable number of decisions of this Court. This, however, is not so where the consenting reversioner dies during the lifetime of the widow and never becomes vested with the inheritance. In that case by his consent he cannot sign away the rights of others. His consent in such cases cannot be deemed to be an alienation by him in favour a stranger became he had no power to make an alienation of the property with which he was never vested. In respect of the ancestral property, the estate of the next immediate reversioner is itself limited and he cannot, therefore, by any act of his, make the title of the alienee indefeasible because his own alienations can be challenged by the remoter reversioners.

3. The above passage shall make it clear that where the consenting reversioner survives the widow and "comes into possession of the estate" which is non-ancestral, his consent "cures all defects that may have 'existed in the alienee's title on the equitable rule given statutory recognition in Section 18, Specific Relief Act." All persons deriving title from him shall also be barred and the title of the alienee shall become "indefeasible." But where he died before the succession opened out or the property being -ancestral, his own estate was limited, his con-sent could not operate to "sign away the rights of others." In other words, to make the consent