Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

"The origin of the sthanam is lost in antiquity. It primarily means a dignity and denotes the status of the senior Raja in a Malabar Kovilgom or palace. It is surmised that sthanams were also, created by the Rajas by giving certain properties to military chieftains and public officers and also by tarwads creating them and allocating certain properties for their maintenance. Most of the incidents of a sthanam are well settled. Usually the seniormost male member of the family and occasionally a female member attains a sthanam. Properties are attached to the sthanam for the maintenance of its dignity. The legal position of a sthanee is equated to that of a Hindu widow in that he represents the estate for the time being and he can alienate the properties for necessity or for the benefit of the estate. Unlike a Hindu widow, the successor to a sthanee is always a life-estate-holder. In that respect his position is more analogous to an impartible estate-holder. He ceases to have any present interest in the tarwad properties. Like a Hindu widow or an impartible estate-holder, he has an absolute interest in the income or the sthanam properties or acquisitions therefrom. His position is approximated to a member separated from the family and that the members of the tarwad succeed to his acquisitions unless accreted to the estate and he succeeds to the tarwad properties if the tarwad becomes extinct. Questions like what would happen if there is no male heir to a sthanam at any point of time-- whether the properties pertaining to the sthanam would escheat to the State or devolve upon the members of the tarwad or whether a subsequent birth of a male heir would revive the sthanam-- are raised by Sundara Aiyar in his book, but there is a decision of the Madras High Court where in the case of Punnathood family a subsequent born male heir was given a decree for the possession of the properties of a Sthanam. On the question whether a sthanam property, not being the property of a member of a tarwad, be Wended with the property of the tarwad so as to make it a tarwad property, there is no direct decision. On principle if the sthanee, on attaining the sthanam is in the position of a separated member of a Hindu family, there may not be any scope for the application of the doctrine of blending. No member of a tarwad has any right to maintenance from/out of the sthanam properties and the mere fact that a sthanee for the time being, out of generosity or otherwise, gives maintenance to one or other members of the tarwad cannot legally have the effect of converting the sthanam property into a tarwad properly; nor the fact that me sthanam properties are treated as tarwad properties can have such a legal effect.

12. It is not disputed that if the Estate Duty Act, 1953, stood alone, the entire properties of the five Sthanams concerned are liable to estate duty under that Act. The contention is that Hindu Succession Act, 1956, makes a difference.

13. The contention is based on Sub-section (3) of Section 7 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. That sub-section provides that when a Sthanamdar dies after the commencement of that Act. "the sthanam property held by him shall devolve upon the members of the family to which the sthanamdar belonged and the heirs of the sthanamdar as if the sthanam property had been divided per capita immediately before the death of the sthanamdar among himself and all the members of his family then living, and shares falling to the members of his family and the heirs of the sthanamdar shall be held by them as their separate property". There is an explanation to Sub-section (8). It reads as follows:--

19. Leach M. R. said in Parr v. Parr, (1888) 2 LJCh 107, that the word "devolve" means to pass from a person dying to a person living and that "the etymology of the word shows its meaning." We entertain no doubt that it is in the sense indicated by the Master of the Rolls that the word "devolve" is used in the first portion of Sub-section (8) of Section 7 when it says that the Sthanam property held by a Sthanamdar shall devolve upon the members of the family to which the Sthanamdar he-longed and the heirs o the Sthanamdar. In other words, the words "as if the sthanam property had been divided per capita immediately before the death of the sthanamdar" do not attenuate the Sthanam properly that passes on THE death of a Sthanamdar to a per capita share therein as contended by the appellant in Writ Appeal No. 276 of 1965' and by the respondents in Writ Appeal Nos. 319, 174, 179 and 338 of 1965.

On further reflection, I have come to the conclusion, that the proper construction of the Section is, that what the Sthanamdar died possessed of, was the entirety of the Sthanam property. To my mind, the word "devolve" is not conclusive, that it connotes only devolution by succession. There is high authority for the view, that in certain contexts the term has a wider import. In In re, Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act, AIR 1941 FC 72 at p. 79 Sir Maurice Linford Gwyer, C.J., said " devolution' may be wider in scope than 'succession' in the sense, that the former is not restricted to the result of a 'death'." Giving the term 'devolve', the wider connotation, as including vesting of property by division or partition, logically the clause shall devolve upon the members of the family to which the Sthanamdar belonged and the heirs of the Sthanamdar", must imply, that devolution of Sthanam property on the two classes of successors, viz., the members of his family and his heirs, takes place at the same time and perhaps even by the same process.