Mallesappa Bandeppa Desai v. Desai Mallappa
Supreme Court of India, 9 February 1961, 3 judges, 1961 AIR 1268, 1961 SCR (3) 779
The Hindu law doctrine of blending cannot apply to property held by a Hindu female as a limited owner; property a manager obtained under a compromise decree in litigation fought for the family with family funds belongs to the family.
Facts
The appellants, Mallesappa and Chenna Basappa, sued their uncle Mallappa (respondent 1), the family manager, and their granduncle Honnappa (respondent 2) for partition. Both lower courts rejected respondent 1's plea of a 1929 partition and treated the family as undivided. The High Court, reversing the trial court, excluded two groups of property: lands at Jonnagiri which the appellants' grandmother Channamma had inherited from her father as a limited owner and which, they claimed, had been blended with her husband's family property; and Schedule C properties which respondent 1 obtained under a compromise decree in a 1940 suit over Virupakshappa's estate. The appellants appealed on a certificate granted by the Madras High Court.
Questions before the Court
- Whether the doctrine of blending can apply to property held by a Hindu female as a limited owner.
- Whether the Schedule C properties obtained by respondent 1 under the compromise decree belonged to him individually or to the joint family.
What the Court held
- The text of Yagnavalkya and the Mitakshara commentary relied on by the Privy Council in Shiba Prasad Singh deal with gains made by a coparcener with the use of the family stock, not with separate property thrown into the common stock, and cannot be the basis of the doctrine of blending.
- The doctrine is nonetheless part of Hindu law. It presupposes a coparcener who deliberately and clearly intends to give up his separate claim and treat his separate property as joint family property.
- A Hindu female holding a limited estate is not a coparcener and cannot circumvent the rules of surrender by letting her husband's family treat her estate as joint property. The claim to the Jonnagiri lands failed.
- Where a manager claims to have acquired property with his own separate funds, the onus is on him to prove it. The suit was fought for the family with Neelamma's consent and family funds, so the Schedule C properties belonged to the family.
Why it matters
The Court held that blending applies only where the owner is a coparcener with separate property, and so not to a Hindu female's limited estate. It said the Yagnavalkya text relied on by the Privy Council has no relation to the doctrine of blending, while accepting the doctrine as settled by decisions. It also placed on the manager the burden of proving that property was acquired from separate funds.
In the Court's words
Copied from the official judgment; each passage links to its page.
“It would thus be clear that the relevant text and the commentary are not dealing with a case where the separate property of a coparcener independently acquired by him is thrown into the common stock with the deliberate intention of extinguishing its separate character and impressing upon it the character of the joint family property. The subject-matter of the discussion is addition to the common stock made by the efforts of a coparcener with the assistance of the common stock itself. Therefore, in our opinion, the said text cannot be treated as the basis for the doctrine of blending as it has been judicially evolved.”
“Such a Hindu female is not a coparcener and as such has no interest in coparcenary property. She holds the property as a limited owner, and on her death the property has to devolve on the next reversioner. Under Hindu law it is open to a limited owner like a Hindu female succeeding to her mother's estate as in Madras, or a Hindu widow succeeding to her husband's estate, to efface herself and accelerate the reversion by surrender; but, as is well known, surrender has to be effected according to the rules recognised in that behalf.”
“There can be no doubt that the conduct on which a plea of blending is based must clearly and unequivocally show the intention of the owner of the separate property to convert his property into an item of joint family property. A mere intention to benefit the members of the family by allowing them the use of the income coming from the said property may not necessarily be enough to justify an inference of blending”
“where a manager claims that any immovable property has been acquired by him with his own separate funds and not with the help of the joint family funds of which he was in possession and charge, it is for him to prove by clear and satisfactory evidence his plea that the purchase money proceeded from his separate fund. The onus of proof must in such a case be placed on the manager and not on his coparceners.”
Case and bench
- Parties
- Mallesappa Bandeppa Desai v. Desai Mallappa
- Case
- Civil Appeal No. 263 of 1956
- Decided
- 9 February 1961
- Bench
- P.B. Gajendragadkar, K.N. Wanchoo, K.C. Das Gupta
- Opinions
- Unanimous. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by Gajendragadkar, J.
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