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3. The defendants contended that they are bona fide purchasers for value and the suit was barred by limitation.

4. The learned Subordinate Judge held that the wakf was proved and that the properties in suit related to the wakf, and the mortgages were invalid but Its. 4,000 out of the consideration for the sale-deed was for a necessary purpose, but he held that as the Mutawalli defendant No. 4 was removed from office by the Baroda Government in 1910 the suits were barred by limitation.

5. On appeal it is contended on behalf of the appellants that the view of the lower Court on the point of limitation is erroneous. The respondents contended that the finding, that the suit properties were wakf and that the alienations were invalid, was erroneous and also relied on the plea of limitation.

44. The specific facts are the following-

45. The villages of Mogar and Nasirpur wore alienated by the Mogul Emperor Alamgir in 1668 in favour of the family of two celebrated saints and have been held by the family ever since. A sanad was granted by the British Government in recognition of the grant in 1874 and this is one in personal inam, a form of tenure which allows of alienations by the owners, There is no sovereign grant of a wakf, and the one we are concerned with is a private dedication by the members of the alienees' family. There is no document, but the dedication is said to have been prior to 1807, and is connected with the services of a mosque and two dargas at Navsari in Baroda State. The Baroda authorities first took action in the matter in 1910, and since then a Mutawalli has been appointed for the property of the foundation at Navsari, and also a committee to manage it. The British India suit, which ended in the deposition of the same Mutawalli, defendant No. 4, was filed in 1919 and finally decided by this Court in 1922. The Mutawalli and committee are the same as the ones appointed by the Baroda State. This suit was filed on September 29, 1924, by that Mutawalli and committee. The learned Subordinate Judge's important findings are that (1) the suit properties have been proved to be wakf, (2), that the suit alienations are not valid and binding on the plaintiffs : but that the suit is time-barred. The suit was accordingly dismissed. Appellants' main point was the one they had failed on, that of limitation, but Messrs. Thakor and Coyajee for the respondents supported the decree also on grounds which were found against them in the Court below. It is, therefore) necessary again to decide both the main points in the suit.

50. The fourth, another agreement of 1853, when Hajimiya relinquished his share of the Khanka land and the whole of its management was handed over to defendant No. 4's grandfather. Nanumiya, defendant No. 4's father, appears to have been the manager from 1865 till he died in 1901. In 1887 there was a suit against him in the Navsari Court, for accounts, in which it was alleged that wakf property had been alienated, and he was examined, but in the end the suit was withdrawn. It appears that Nanumiya and probably his predecessors before him, as well as his successor after him, had been treating the family wakf property as their own, and had been encumbering it for their private debts. The proceedings of 1887 were, however, in Baroda, as were those which began in 1910.

60. Yet another argument has been that in any case by a local custom long since recognized in Abas Alli v. Ghulam, Muhammad (1863) 1 B.H.C.R. 36 and Krishnarao Gunesh v. Rangrav (1867) 4 B.H.C.R. (A.C.J.) 1, 9, wakf land in the Broach and Surat districts may be mortgaged by the Mutawalli, in spite of the contrary in directions of the Muhammadan law. But the custom was never pleaded this case and there is no evidence of it; while the cases relied on are old ones. There is no recent support of Mr. Coyajee's contention, and I think that in the circumstances we cannot be guided by these rulings. Again it was argued that under the Muhammadan law the Kazi has authority to sanction alienations of wakf property and that two of the relevant documents have been attested by a person who describes himself as a Kazi. But we do not know whether he signed as a Kazi, and in any case a mere attestation is, I think, something different from a formal sanction of an alienation for proper reasons, and of such a sanction there is no evidence.