Misra, J. - (1.) This is a suit by the plaintiff for a declaration that the deed of sale dated 1st of July, 3931, executed by Madhukuer and defendant Nos. 1 to 4, in the name of Harihar Singh the deed of sale dated 13th of January, 1943, executed by Nathuni Singh and Munshi Singh in the name of Punit Singh; two deeds of sale dated 13th of September, 1945 and 14th of September, 1946, executed by Punit Singh in the name of Ramsaroop Singh and Pargash Singh, respectively; the deed of sale dated 13 h September, 1946, executed by Bila Kuer and Ratuna Kuer in the name of Ramsaroop Sinqh; and the deed of sale dated 13th , f Sep ember, 1946, executed by Bala Kuer and Ratuna Kuer in the name of Pargas Singh, in all six saie deeds, are executed without legal necessity said without consideration and are not binding upon the estate, or upon the reversioners to the estate, of Janakdhari Singh. The plaintiff claims to be one of the reversioners to the estate of Janakdhari Singh and releis upon the following genealogy in support of his relationship with Janakdhari : JUDGEMENT_319_AIR(PAT)_1958Html1.htm The maternal grand-mother of the plaintiff died on 16th August, 1944 leaving behind her three daughters, defendants Nos. 2 to 4, and seven maternal grandsons including the plaintiff, defendant No. 1 and defendants Nos. 10 to 13 and 16. The mother of the plaintiff, Sheo Kuer, is dead. Beasi Kuer, mother of defendant Tulsi Singh is also dead. The case of the plaintiff was that when he went to his Nanihal on the occasion of the Sradh ceremony of Mt. Madhu Kuer, he learnt that Harihar Singh, father-in-law of Ratuna Kuer and Samdhi of Madhu Kuer, who was a frequent visitor to village Shikaria and looked after the affairs of Madhu Kuer, persuaded the latter to execute a nominal deed of sale in respect of most of the properties of the estate of Janakdhari Singh. Punit Singh, defendant No. 7, also practised fraud and set up a false and fraudulent claim to 6 bighas & 7 kathas 1 dhur of kast land. Accordingly, he obtained certified copies of the sale deeds from the registry office which bore dates 1st July, 1931 and 13th January, 1943. On a perusal of the documents, he found that the deed dated 1st of July, 1931, was exe- cuted by his maternal grand-mother, Mt. Madhu Kuer, and defendant Nos. 1 to 4, viz., his own brother Mehi Lall Singh and the three living sisters of his mother, namely, Mt. Mit Kuer, Mt. Bala Kuer and Mt. Ratuna Kuer, in respect of 6 bighas 7 kathas 1 dhur of land with false recital of payment of consideration. The deed of sale dated 13th January. 1943, was executed collusively and fraudulently by defendants Nos. 5 and 6, who were sons of Harihar Singh in favour of another son of Harihar Singh, namely, Punit Singh (defendant No. 7) in respect of 2.62 acres of kaslit land. The plaintiff gave further details of the other sale deeds in respect of the properties covered thereunder. The suit was contested mainly by defendant No. 7, Punit Singh. Defendant Nos. 8 and 9 also contested the suit and so did defendant No. 1, the brother of the plaintiff, alleging that he was the adonted son of Janakdhari Singh. He challenged, however, the genuineness of the sale deed dated 1st July, 1931. A written statement was also filed on behalf of the minor defendants challenging the cause of action pleaded by the plaintiff. De- fendant No. 16, however, supported the plain- tiff.
(2.) On a consideration of the oral and documentary evidence led by the parties, the learned Additional Subordinate Judge IV, Patna, decreed the suit, holding that the plaintiff was a daughter's son of Uttim Singh and sister's son of Janakdhari Singh and all the six sale deeds impugned by him were executed without legal necessity and, as such, were not binding on him. Defendant Nos. 7 to 9, who mainly contested the suit, were saddled with costs payable to the plaintiff. This appeal has been brought to this Court by defendants Ramsaroop Singh and Pargas Singh against the decision of the Court below.
(3.) The principal question raised on behalf of the appellants is that in view of Section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act (Act 30 of 1956) the suit of the plaintiff will not be maintainable. In support of that contention, learned counsel for the appellants has drawn our attention to a number of reported and unreported decisions of this Court wherein it has been held that after the passing of Act 30 of 1956 (Hindu Succession Act, 1956) reversionary right has Come to an end under the Hindu Law and a suit by a reversioner is not maintainable. Accordingly, in the present case, after the death of Madhu Kuer, Mit Kuer, Bala Kuer and Ratuna Kuer, defendant Nos. 2, 3 and 4, inherited the estate of Janakdhari Singh as sisters under Act 2 of 1929 and, after the passing of the Hindu Succession Act, they held the properties as absolute owners, and the plaintiff, whose mother died long before, had no locus standi to maintain the suit. The reported decisions referred to are Ram Ayodhya Missir v. Raghunath Missir, (S) AIR 1957 Pat 480 (A) and Mt. Janki Kuer v. Chhathu Prasad, (S) AIR 1957 Pat 674 (B). The decision in the case of Mt. Janki Kuer is based on the case of Ram Ajodhya Missir. It is, no doubt, true that both these decisions support the contention raised on behalf of the appellants and, ordinarily, I would not enter into a detailed discussion of the argument advanced on behalf of the plaintiff-respondent as the two above decisions, which are Bench decisions, are binding upon me. In the present case, however, learned Counsel for the respondents has contended that in view of numerous decisions of the other High Courts holding a contrary view, the matter should be referred to a larger Bench for an authoritative pronouncement. In my opinion, however, it is not necessary to do so as I am satisfied that the view adopted in our High Court in numerous cases, reported and un-reported, lays down the law correctly. I would, however, deal with the contentions pressed before us which have found favour with the Hon'ble Judges of some other High Courts in order to find out whether a reference to a larger Bench would be justified. In order to appreciate the contentions therefore, it may be worthwhile to reproduce here Section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 : "14. Property of a female Hindu to be her absolute property. (1) Any property possessed by a female Hindu whether acquired before or after the commencement of this Act, shall be held by her as full owner thereof and not as a limited owner. Explanation : In this sub-section, 'property' includes both movable and immovable property acquired by a female Hindu by inheritance or demise, or at a partition, or in lieu of maintenance or arrears of maintenance or by gift from any person, whether a relative or not, before, at or after her marriage, or by her own skill or exertion, or by purchase or by prescription, or in any other manner whatsoever, and also any such property held by her as stridhana immediately before the commencement of this Act. (2) Nothing contained in Sub-section (1) shall apply to any property acquired by way of gift or under a will or any other instrument or under a decree or order of a Civil Court or under an award where the terms of the gift, Will or other instrument or the decree, order or award prescribe a restricted estate in such property." The Hon'ble Judges of this Court in the case of Ram Ajodhya Missir (A), proceeded upon the fooling that Section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act is made expressly retrospective and the statute declares that any property possessed by a female Hindu whether acquired before or after the commencement of this Act, shall be held by her as full owner thereof and not as a limited owner. That also was a case where the plaintiff had brought a suit for a declaration that the sale deed executed by a limited owner in possession of the estate was without legal necessity and not binding on him. It was expressly held that the plaintiff had no reversionary right to the suit land and Mt. Parkalo Kuer, who died after the passing of the Hindu Succession Act (Act 30 of 1956) was an absolute owner. The sale deed was executed in 19.14 by the mother of Parkalo Kuer and the daughter of the executrix of the sale deed (Parkalo Kuer) who died after the passing of the Act was an absolute owner. The ratio of the case proceeded as follows : "The plaintiff has no vested interest nor has he any spes successionis in the property which is the subject matter of the present litigation. Under (he Hindu Law as it stood before the Hindu Succession Act (Act 30 of 1956) every female who succeeded as an heir, whether to a male or to a female, took a limited estate in the property inherited by her. The heirs of the last full owner, who would be entitled to succeed to the estate of such owner on the death of a widow or other limited heir, if they be then living, were called 'reversioners'. It is also settled by various authorities that the interest of a reversioner was an interest expectant on the death of a limited heir. It was pot a vested interest. It was a spes successionis or a mere chance of succession. A reversionary heir was however recognised by Courts of law as having a right to demand that the estate be kept free from danger during its enjoyment by the widow or other limited heir. A reversionary heir may sue to restrain a widow or other limited heir from committing waste or injuring the property. A reversionary heir may also bring a representative suit for a declaration that an alienation by the widow is not binding on the reversion. The reason why such a suit was allowed was that the suit was in a representative capacity and on behalf of all the reversioners, and the object of the suit was that the corpus of the estate should pass unimpaired to those entitled to the reversion. But there has been a revolutionary change in law in this respect because of Sections 14 and 15 of the Hindu Succession Act (Act 30, of 1956). The effect of these sections is that the plaintiff in the present case is no more a reversioner and that the estate of Mosammat Parkalo Kuer, is not a limited estate but an absolute estate and that the plaintiff has no vested interest in the property nor has he a right of reversion or any kind of spes successionis. This decision was followed in AIR 1937 Pat 674 (B), and the learned Judges in following this decision also had occasion to consider the following cases of the other High Courts: Gaddam Venkayamma v. Gaddam Veerayya, AIR 1957 Andh Pra 280 (C); Thailambal Ammal v. Kesavan Nair, AIR 1957 Kerala 86 (D); Gostha Behari Bera v. Haridas Samanta, (S) AIR 1957 Cal 557 (E); Sm. Laxmi Devi v. Surendra Kumar Panda, (S) AIR 1957 Orissa 1 (F) and Hari Kishen v. Hira, (S) AIR 1957 Punj 89 (G). The above cases of the other High Courts have taken the view that the scope of Section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act should be confined to a case where the Hindu female is in actual possession of the property and not to a case where she has parted with her rights prior to the coming into force of this Act by alienation. It is true, no doubt, that in Ram Ajodhya Missir's case (A), this aspect of the question was not definitely placed before the Court but in Janki Kuer's case (B), all the other decisions referred to above were placed for consideration. The Calcutta case was distinguished on the ground that the limited owner in that case had died sometime in the year 1946 or 1947, before the passing of Act 30 of 1956, and the observation in that case, therefore, to the effect that the Act would not apply to protect the right of an alienee from the limited owner, was held to be mere obiter dictum. The decision in the Punjab case was distinguished on the ground that it proceeded on the meaning of the word 'possessed' occurring in Section 14. The same was the basis of the judgment in the Andhra case and Kerala case. Learned counsel for the respondents has urged before us that the word "possessed" is significant and that their Lordships of this Court in deciding Janki Kuer's case (B), should not have been content merely by observing that the Punjab and Kerala cases have decided the meaning of the word "possessed" but should have explained the meaning of the word "possessed" as their Lordships of the Punjab Andhra and Kerala High Courts did. In view of this submission, I have to consider the contention with regard to the word "possessed". It may be stated that the decision in the Kerala High Court has followed the view of Viswanatha Sastri, J. of the Andhra High Court. That too was a case where a suit was brought by the plaintiff for a declaration that the sales by the limited owner in possession were not binding on a reversioner. The limited owner was made defendant. The view expressed in that case was as follows : "Though Section 14 of the Act is retrospective in so far as it enlarges a Hindu Woman's limited estate into an absolute estate even in respect of property inherited or held by her as a limited owner before the Act came into force, its operation is confined to property in the possession of the female when the Act came into force. The word 'possessed' in Section 14 refers to possession on the date when the Act came into force. Of course, the possession referred to in Section 14 need not be actual physical possession or personal occupation of the property by the Hindu female, but may be possession in law. The possession of a licensee, lessee or mortgagee from the female owner or the possession of a guardian or trustee or agent of the female owner would be her possession for the purpose of Section 14. The word 'possessed' is used in Section 14 in a broad sense and in the context 'possession' means "the state of owning or having in one's hands or power'. It includes possession by receipt of rents and profits. Even if a trespasser is in possession of land belonging to a female owner on the date when the Act came into force, the female owner might conceivably be regarded as being in possession of the land, if the trespasser had not perfected his title by adverse possession before the Act came into force." Further on, "The object of the Act was to confer a benefit on Hindu females by enlarging their limited interest in property inherited or held by them into an absolute estate, with retrospective effect, 'if they were in possession of the property when the Act came into force and therefore in a position to take advantage of its-beneficient provisions. The Act was not intended to benefit alienees who, with eyes open, purchased property from female limited owners without any justifying necessity before the Act came into force and at a time when the female vendors had only the limited interest of a Hindu woman. On a transfer of property, it is only the transferor's interest that would pass to the transferee, the general principle being that a person cannot transfer to another more than what he or she is entitled to and a transferee cannot therefore have :a better title than what the transferor had to the property transferred..... A Hindu female limited owner who, before the coming into force of the Act, had sold property inherited by her retains no right to or interest in the property on the date of the coming into force of the Act. Section 14 merely enlarges her limited interest into an absolute estate in the property held by her when the Act came into force and does not enlarge the rights of a purchaser of her limited interest before the Act came into force. The rule of 'interest feeding the estoppel' enacted in Section 43 of the Transfer of Property Act on which reliance was placed for the appellant, would not avail the vendees, because the female vendor does not get an absolute estate under Section 14 of the Act in property of which she was not in possession at the date when the Act came into force." In my opinion, it is necessary to determine the meaning of the word "possessed". It appears that the reasoning in the Andhra case, which is more or less the reasoning of the Kerala case, also is that because the Legislature has used the word "possessed" in Section 14, a Hindu female in order to take advantage of this provision of law must be possessed of the property. In my opinion, there is some difficulty in accepting this view. If the Legislature intended that the Hindu female must be in possession of the property at the commencement of this Act then the section should have been enacted as follows: "Any property possessed by a female Hindu at or after the commencement of this Act, whether acquired before or after it, shall be held by her as full owner thereof and not as a limited owner." If the stress was laid upon possession of the property at the commencement of the Act then the phrase "commencement of this Act" should have been placed as I have suggested, and not as it is actually used in the section. It is accepted in the above reasoning that the Act is at least partially retrospective in the sense that absolute right on the female Hindu has been conferred even in respect of a property already acquired by her as a limited owner. The only point for decision, therefore, is whether this retrospectivity is partial or complete. In my opinion, it is difficult to hold that the retrospectivity is only partial. All that the Legislature intended to lay down was to put an end to the dispute with regard to the rights of a female Hindu. It is well known that when a widow inherits property as such she stands in the shoes of her husband and she is a full owner for all practical purposes, subject, however, to the limitation that she cannot dispose of the property or corpus without justifying necessity. As for the reversioner, he has no right to the property during the lifetime of the widow, as has been held by this Court in Ram Ayodhya Missir's case (A), from which I have quoted above. If the view adopted by the other High Courts mentioned above were to be taken as sound, it would imply the existence of vested interest in the reversioner. Moreover, even grammatically speaking, the word "possessed" cannot be confined only to the present tense. It is a word which can imply past possession as well as present possession. It may also Imply future possession, in which event, no doubt, the better expression would be "to be possessed". But even the word "possessed" may have the same meaning. For instance, when the sentence is used "You would be paid at the rate of one rupee per day for all work done by you'', it may mean the work done in the past, the work being actually done and the work to be done in future. To what particular situation, past, present or Future, this past participle will be confined will depend upon the context. In my opinion, therefore, if the Legislature has used the expression "any property possessed by a female Hindu", it is not to be confined only to present possession. As Viswanatha Sastri, J. of the Andhra High Court has observed the word "possessed" has been used here in a broad sense, (I agree with respect with that view) in which event alone the Hindu female can have a right to recover possession of the property which may not be in her actual possession but to which she may have a right in law to recover possession, such as her suit against a trespasser who has not perfected his title by adverse possession.;