Case: Sahu Madho Das And Others Vs. Pandit Mukand Ram And Another(And Connected Appeal)

back on it to the detriment of other persons; all the more so when he himself receives a benefit : see Raja Modhu Sudan Singh v. Rooke ([1897] 24 I.A. 164, 169); Bijoy Gopal v. Krishna ([1906] 34 I.A. 87), and Ramgouda Annagouda v. Bhausaheb ([1927] 54 I.A. 396). Lord Sinha, delivering the judgment of the Privy Council in the last of these three cases, said at page 402 :-"It is settled law that an alienation by a widow in excess of her powers is not altogether void but only voidable by the reversioner, who may either singly or as a body be precluded from exercising their right to avoid it either by express ratification or by acts which treat it as valid or binding."40. This was followed in Dhiyan Singh v. Jugal Kishore (1952 S.C.R. 478, 488) though the ground of that decision was estoppel. We are now founding on another principle which is not grounded on estoppel and which, indeed, is not peculiar to Hindu law.Estoppel is rule of evidence which prevents a party from alleging and proving the truth. Here the plaintiff is not shut out from asserting anything. We are assuming in his favour that Pato had only a life estate and we are examining at length his assertion that he did not assent to the family arrangement. The principle we are applying is therefore not estoppel. It is a rule underlying many branches of the law which precludes a person who, with full knowledge of his rights, has once elected to assent to a transaction voidable at his instance and has thus elected not to exercise his right to avoid it, from going back on that and avoiding it at a later stage. Having made his election he is bound by it.41. So far as the Hindu law is concerned, Lord Dunedin explained in Rangaswami Gounden v. Nachiappa Gounden ([1918] 46 I.A. 72, 86, 87), a case in which a widow gifted properties to her nephew, that though the reversioner is not called upon to exercise his right to avoid until the reversion falls in and so no assent can be inferred from mere inaction prior to the death or deaths of the limited owner or owners, he is not bound to wait and"of course something might be done even before that time which amounted to an actual election to hold the deed good."42. Ramgouda case ([1927] 54 I.A. 396, 402) is an illustration of what that something can be, for there the assent was given by the ultimate reversioner before he became in titulo to alienations by a widow, one of which was a gift. The present case is another illustration. For the reasons we have given and which we shall now further examine, we hold that the plaintiff, who is in titulo now that the succession has opened out, unequivocally assented to the arrangement with full knowledge of the facts and accepted benefit under it, therefore, he is now precluded from avoiding it, and any attempts he made to go behind that assent when it suited his purpose cannot render the assent one given nugatory and even though the assent was to a series of gifts.The real question is whether the plaintiff assented to the family arrangement, and as plaintiff was not a party to the arrangement his assent to the arrangement itself, and not to something else, must be clearly established, and also his knowledge of the facts. But we think they have been. In the first place, there was the express assent in 1890 to the gifts made to the other grandsons on the basis that each grandson got an absolute estate. Next, there was the long course of dealings by Kanhaiya Lal and Mukand Ram in which they asserted absolute titles. Mukand Ram tells us in the witness box as P.W. 11 (C.A. 91) that Kanhaiya Lal was the karta of the joint family to which Mukand Ram belonged, therefore Kanhaiya Lals dealings with the properties which he and his brother held under a joint and undivided title are also relevant as they will bind Mukand Ram. And lastly, there is Mukand Rams representation to Shyam Lal (D.W. 1 in C.A. 94) which leaves us in no doubt about his knowledge. The cumulative effect of this course of conduct leads to a reasonable inference that Kanhaiya Lal and Mukand Ram were holding, not on the basis of a separate and individual gift made by a life owner with the assent of the next set of life owners, but on the basis of the family arrangement which was one composite whole in which the several dispositions formed parts of the same transaction under which Mukand Ram himself acquired a part of the estate : see Ramgouda v. Bhausaheb ([1927] 54 I.A. 396, 402). We are therefore satisfied that the plaintiffs assent was to this very arrangement; and that concludes both cases.43. In C.A. 94/50 there is, in addition, a direct personal estoppel against the plaintiff. The transfers that are challenged there are sales of 23-9-18 and 25-11-19 made by two of the grandsons, one personally and the other by the guardian, but the relevant dates for the purposes of the estoppel are later because the representation in this case was not made to the immediate transferees but to the first defendant who obtained title to the properties at a later date, in one case by a sale from the immediate transferee, in the other by pre-emption. But the exact dates do not matter because the representation to the first defendants purchases. It was made by Kanhaiya Lal and Mukand Ram as well as by other members of the family. We have already referred to the first defendants evidence. This case would therefore be governed by Dhiyan Singh v. Jugal Kishore (1952 S.C.R. 478) in any event. But we need not elaborate this further because of the other principle which, in our opinion, is sufficient to dispose of both the present cases.

Decision (1 = appeal accepted, 0 = rejected): 1

Explanation:
1[ds]Now it is true that the so-called will of 1864 does not make provision for the grandsons, nor does it expressly confer an absolute estate on the legatees, but the witness is illiterate and had to depend on what he was told about the contends and meaning of the document, and what we have to test is the truth of his assertion that the plaintiff Mukand Ram and Kanhaiya Lal, and other members of the family, told him that Mst. Pato had given the property to her daughters and grandsons. If they told him this, as he says they did, then it operates as an admission against Mukand Ram and shifts the burden of proof to him because he was one of the persons who made the statement. The statements made by the others are not relevant except in so far as they prove the conduct of the family.The plaintiff (P.W. 11 in C.A. 91/50) admits that Mst. Pato divided the estate but says that it was only for convenience of management and that neither she nor her daughters had, or pretended to have, anything more than a life estate. He denies that there was any gift or family arrangement. But he had to admit that the grandsons also got properties at the same time. His explanation is that it was for the purposes of "shradh" and pilgrimage to Gaya and he says that though they were given possession they were not thealso admits that there was a division and separate possession from 1876. He says that it was for convenience of management and says that it was after Patos death, but in view of the mass of evidence that we have just analysed, we think it far more likely that he told Shyam Lal just what Shyam Lal says he did. After all, he was borrowing money from Shyam Lal on each of these occasions; so there is every reason to believe that he would have told Shyam Lal what he had so repeatedly asserted to his other transferees. We accordingly believe Shyamaccordingly hold that, whether the property belonged to Pato or to Nanak Chand, Pato claimed an absolute right which the daughters acknowledged, and in return they and their sons were given separate and absolute estates in separate portions of the propertyis well settled that a compromise or family arrangement is based on the assumption that there is an antecedent title of some sort in the parties and the agreement acknowledges and defines what that title is, each party relinquishing all claims to property other than that falling to his share and recognising the right of the others, as they had previously asserted it, to the portions allotted to them respectively. That explains why no conveyance is required in these cases to pass the title from the one in whom it resides to the person receiving it under the family arrangement. It is assumed that the title claimed by the person receiving the property under the arrangement had always resided in him or her so far as the property falling to his or her share is concerned and therefore no conveyance is necessary. But, in our opinion, the principle can be carried further and so strongly do the Courts lean in favour or family arrangements that bring about harmony in a family and do justice to its various members and avoid, in anticipation, future disputes which might ruin them all, that we have no hesitation in taking the next step (fraud apart) and upholding an arrangement under which one set of members abandons all claim to all title and interest in all the properties in dispute and acknowledges that the sole and absolute title to all the properties resides in only one of their number (provided he or she had claimed the whole and made such an assertion of title) and are content to take such properties as are assigned to their shares as gifts pure and simple from him or her, or as a conveyance for consideration when consideration isfar as they are concerned, what they received were gifts pure and simple and the only assent that could be inferred from mere acceptance of the gift and nothing more would be assent to that particular gift and not assent to the gifts similarly made to others; and for thisC.A. 94/50 there is, in addition, a direct personal estoppel against the plaintiff. The transfers that are challenged there are sales of 23-9-18 and 25-11-19 made by two of the grandsons, one personally and the other by the guardian, but the relevant dates for the purposes of the estoppel are later because the representation in this case was not made to the immediate transferees but to the first defendant who obtained title to the properties at a later date, in one case by a sale from the immediate transferee, in the other by pre-emption. But the exact dates do not matter because the representation to the first defendants purchases. It was made by Kanhaiya Lal and Mukand Ram as well as by other members of the family. We have already referred to the first defendantswe need not elaborate this further because of the other principle which, in our opinion, is sufficient to dispose of both the present cases.