Madras High Court
Sivada Balarami Reddi vs Sivada Pera Reddi And Ors. on 13 February, 1883
Equivalent citations: (1883)ILR 6MAD267
JUDGMENT
1. The burden lay on plaintiff of showing that first defendant by being taken into another family, otherwise than by adoption, had lost his rights of succession in his own family. The Judge reports that plaintiff is unwilling to undertake to establish by further evidence the custom for which he contends.
2. The evidence already taken justified the conclusion arrived at that the first defendant, who had been taken in Illatam after the division between his father and uncle, had a right to share in the estate of the uncle that had devolved after the death of the father. We agree that the karar. in releasing the first defendant's right to share in the property of the family extended only to the property of his immediate family, and not to his rights in that of the divided uncle. The circumstances that a Karar was considered necessary to preclude the first defendant from succeeding in his immediate family is evidence that, without it, in the opinion of those concerned, he would have succeeded, notwithstanding the custom of Illatom; and this tends to show that that custom does not affect existing rights of property of the person taken in Illatom. First defendant, therefore, was rightly adjudged a one-fourth share. We dismiss the appeal with costs.