Vadlamanati Venkatanarayana Rao vs Gottumukkule Venkata Somaraju on 3 March, 1937
It is true of course, that the property in the son's hands after partition was not the property of the deceased. Nor has it come into his hands as a legal representative; but as Cornish, J. pointed out in the Full Bench decision, Venkatanarayana v. Somaraju (1937) 2 M.L.J. 251 : I.L.R. (1937) Mad. 880 (F.B.), Section 53 does not require that the property should be that of the deceased or should have come into the hands of the legal representative, but only says that property in the hands of the son liable for the father's debt should be deemed under this fiction to be property of the deceased which has come into the son's hands as his legal representative. He quotes Mr. Justice Cave in the Queen v.. Norfolk County Council (1891) 60 L.J.Q.B. 379,
When you talk of a thing being deemed to be something, you do not mean to say that it is that which it is to be deemed to be. It is rather an admission that it is not what it is to be deemed to be, and that, notwithstanding it is not that particular thing, nevertheless, for the purposes of the Act, it is to be deemed to be that thing.