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42. If some one asserts that to a particular property held by a sovereign the legal incidents of sovereignty do not apply, it will have to be pleaded and established by him that the said property was held by the sovereign not as a sovereign but in some other capacity. In the instant case apart from asserting that the properties in suit belonged to a joint family and Respondent No. 1 even though a sovereign ruler, held them as the head of the family to which the property belonged, the appellant has neither specifically pleaded nor produced any convincing evidence in support of such an assertion. It has been urged on behalf of the appellant that only the eldest male off-spring of the Attingal Ranis could, by custom, be the ruler and all the heirs of the Ranis who constituted joint Hindu family would be entitled to a share in the properties of the Ranis and the properties in suit were held by Respondent No. 1 as head of the tarwad even though impartible in his hands. This plea has been repelled by the trial court as well as by the High Court and nothing convincing has been brought to our notice on the basis of which the presumption canvassed on behalf of the appellant could be drawn and the findings of the courts below reversed. We are dealing with an appeal and as has been pointed out by this Court in Thakur Sukhpal Singh v. Thakur Kalyan Singh it is the duty of the appellant to show that the judgment under appeal is erroneous.

43. The following extract from pages 190 to 192 of Kerala District Gazetteers, Trivandrum by A. Sreedhara Menon will give a glimpse about the nature of property held by the Attingal Ranis.

Early in his reign Marthanda Varma assumed direct control over the so-called Attingal 'Queendom'. This was not an act of annexation or conquest, but Nagam Aiya has described the event as "the amalgamation of Travancore with Attingal". There has been some misunderstanding among contemporary and later writers in regard to the significance of this step taken by Marthanda Varma. This is the result of a general notion that Attingal was an independent State ruled by the Ranis and that the Kings of Travancore never exercised any authority in the tract. Certain statements found in the memoirs, commentaries and State papers of the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English have only served to strengthen this notion. According to Van Rheede (1677) "the Princess of Attingal who is not alone the mother of Travancore, but the eldest of Tippaporsorewam has a large territory of her own independent of Travancore". Hamilton even refers to a regular treaty between Marthanda Varma and the Rani by which the former strengthened the position of the King. He says that "the Tamburetties of Attingal possessed the sovereignty of Travancore from remote antiquity, until Raja Marthanda Varma persuaded the Tamburetty to resign the sovereign authority to the Rajas, both for himself and for all succeeding Tamburetties. To perpetuate these conditions, a regular treaty was executed between the Raja and the Tamburetty, which was inscribed on a silver plate, and rectified by the most solemn imprecations, limiting the succession to the offsprings of the Attingal Tamburetties. Having concluded this arrangement Raja Marthanda Varma directed his arms against the neighbouring States". The theory that the Ranis of Attingal exercised sovereign powers is, however, incorrect. The fact is that in political matters the Ranis of Attingal as such exercised no sovereign rights. Any grant of rights over immovable property by the Ranis of Attingal required the King's previous assent or subsequent confirmation for its validity. It may be noted that the so-called Queendom of Attingal had its origin in the 5th century Kollam Era when two princesses were adopted into the Venad family from Kolathunad and the revenues from certain estates in and around Attingal were assigned to them for their exclusive use. Since then the female members of the ruling family of Travancore had come to be known as Attingal Ranis. It was only the male children of these Tamburatties, either by birth or by adoption, who could inherit the throne. Thus Marthanda Varma and the heir-apparent Rama Varma were both sons of Attingal Tamburatties. This tended to invest the Attingal Ranis with a special dignity in the eyes of the people, native as well as foreign, and led to the notion that they had sovereign rights over Attingal. But in reality the Kingdom of Venad extended from Kanyakumari in the south as far as Kannetti in the north, and there was no kingdom or principality intervening within its limits. When Marthanda Varma decided to assume direct control over the estates of Attingal and thus deprive the Rani of some of her rights, he was not interfering in the affairs of a sovereign State. As the head of the royal family and the ruler of the State, he had every right to interfere in the affairs of a part of his kingdom, The Rani of Attingal had neither territory nor subjects, except in the sense that the people of Venad paid respects to her as a senior member of the ruling family. What she possessed was nothing more than the control over the revenues of the estates and an outward status and dignity. Whatever powers she exercised were those delegated to her by the head of the family and the sovereign of the State.

44. The historical perspective referred to above runs counter to the case of the appellant with regard to the rights of respondent No. 1 over the properties in suit even if it may be accepted that at some point of time they or any part of them were held by the Attingal Ranis before Marthanda Verma had assumed direct control as sovereign ruler of Travancore over the properties of Attingal Ranis. After the assumption of direct control by Marthanda Varma the properties held by the Ranis, whatsoever the extent and nature of such properties may have been earlier, became properties of the State of Travancore and the legal incidents of property held by a sovereign as referred to above applied to them also. There was no scope of such properties continuing to be joint family properties after such assumption of direct control.

The Sreepadom Lands, enfranchised as aforesaid, as well as the private family properties, more particularly described in the Schedule hereunder, were administered by His Highness 'Sree Padmabha Dass Sri Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma who is the senior most male member of the family.

49. After discussing in detail the status of Attingal Ranis and the mode in which some of the properties came to be held by them the High Court in the judgment appealed against has held:

The Sreepadom Palace is the residence of the Attingal Ranees and naturally the Attingal Ranees and the children would constitute a Marumakkathayam Tarwad. Properties were assigned even at the time of the original adoption in 483 M.E. to the family of Attingal Ranees for the purpose of their maintenance in accordance with the style of living expected of them. It is these properties and properties which came into the family later which were subject matter of division under Ext B.3 partition deed in 1971.