RAMA VERMA BHARATHAN THAMPURAN versus STATE OF KERALA AND ORS.

Citation: [1980] 1 S.C.R. 136 · Decided: 30-07-1979 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: V.R. KRISHNA IYER · Disposal: Dismissed

Cited by 1 judgment(s) · cites 1 · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

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136 
RAMA VERMA BHARATHAN THAMPURAN 
v. 
STATE OF KERALA AND ORS. 
July 30, 1979 
[\!. R. KmsHNA IYER, D. A. DESAI AND A. D. KOSHAL, JJ.J 
Valiamma Thampuram Kovilakam Estate and the Palace (Partition) and 
~ ~ 
the Kerala Joint Hindu Family System (Abolition) Amendment Act, 1978 (Act 
15 of 1978), constitutional validity of. 
The Maharaja of Cochin, reigned and ruled over a pretty State, 
Cochin,. 
\Vhich is now an integral part of the Keralai State. 
The Travancore-Cochin 
State came into being on July 1, 1949. 
Two ·days before this constitutional 
merger, the Mabaraja of Cochin issued a ProclamatiOA to provide for. the 
impartibility, administration and preservation of the Royal Estate 
and 
the 
Palace Fund through a Five-man Board of' Trustees. 
A small Process of 
family legislation on the Cochin Palace followed the· political transformation 
of the State. The first was the Valiamma Thampuram Kovilakam Estate 3.nd 
the Palace Fund (Partition) Act, 1961 (Act 16 of 1961 ), the primary purpose 
of which was to undo the impartibility of the Royal Estate, as declared by the 
Proclamation of 1949. Sections 4 and 5 of the Act prescribed the shares of 
the members, the mode of division and the 
machinery for 
partition under 
these provisions, on a majority of the major members of the royal falll.l1y 
expressing their wish to be divided, the Maharaja 
would 
consider \Vhether 
it was. in the interest of the family to partition the estate among the members 
and, if he did, direct the Board of Trustees to proceed with the partition 
under his supervision and control, 
Each member including en ventra sa nz€re, 
was eli&ible for a single sha.re on an equal basis.. 
The Board nominated 
under the earlier Proclan1ation 
was continued but its responsibilities were 
broadened. The privileges of the Maharaja were preserved as 
his 
personal 
rights but vis-a-vis family assets 
feudal 
"primogeniture" fell 
to 
modem 
egalite, within limits. As a result of the 26th Constitution Amendment Act 
of 1971 which extinguished all royal privileges, privy purses and other dignities 
of the erstwhile rulers of the Indian States, the Cochin Maharaja stepped 
down to the level of the Karta of a Joint Hindu Family. The Marummakkatta~ 
yam system which ensured impartibility and management by the senior 
most 
men1ber bad lost its functional value and virtually vanished from 
the Kera.la 
coast with the passing of the Kerala Joint Hindu Family System 
(Abolition). 
Act, 1975 (Act 30 of 1976). Despite this revolutionary change, the Cochin 
royal family maintained its former status as Marummakkattayam 
undivided 
coparcenary since it was governed by special legislation which remained 
un~ 
repealed. Therefore, the Kerala Legislation enacted the Valiamma Thampuram 
Kovilakam Estate and the Palace Fund (Partition) and the Kerala Joint Hindu 
Family System (Abolition) Amendment Act, 1978 (Act 15 of 1978). Before 
the High Court and in the special leave petition, the vires of the Amending Act 
omitting sections 4 and 5 from the Principal Act 16/1961 was challenged as 
offending Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution. 
Dismissing the sp'ecial leave petition, the Court, 
! ' 
' • 
';: i 
R. v. B. THAMPURAN v. KERALA (Krishna Iyer, !.) 
137 
HELD : The public policy behind Section 7 
of the 
Valiamma Tham-
puram Kovilakam Estate and the Palace Fund (Partition) Act, 1961, exclud-
ini civil court jurisdiction is not merely the special situation 
of the former 
royal family but the virtual impossibility within a life-time of division 
by 
meteS aod bounds and al1'1tment of aha.r'es to the 800 odd members, most 
of whom are real royalties in rags, homeless and hungry, seeking to survive 
by the small pieces from the large cake if ever it will be sliced and distributed. 
[141A-BJ 
Civil litigatio.Q for partition is 
the 
surest 
punishment to 
the tattered 
~princelings' by pauperising them through the justice process and giving them 
stones instead of bread in the end, if the end would arrive at all. The com-
pulsive pragmatics of distributive justice elicited legislative compassion for this 
uniquely numerous crowd of pauperised patricians by exclusion of civil courts 
jurisdiction. Th!! pathology of protracted, exotic processual legalistics needs com-
prehensive renovation if the Justice System is to survive but the legislature sal-
vaged the largest royal family with the littlest individual resources without \Vaiting 
for the re

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