SAHU MADHO DAS AND OTHERS versus PANDIT MUKAND RAM AND ANOTHER

Citation: [1955] 2 S.C.R. 22 · Decided: 22-03-1955 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: VIVIAN BOSE · Disposal: Appeal(s) allowed

Cited by 7 judgment(s) · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

1955 
Morch 22 
22 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
[1955] 
SAHU MADHO DAS AND OTHERS 
v. 
PANDIT MUKAND RAM AND ANOTHER 
(and connected Appeal) 
(VIVIAN BOSE' B. JAGANNADHADAS and 
B. P. SINHA JJ.l 
Compromise or family arrangement-Proof of-Assumption of 
antecedent title of some .sort in the parties-Re'versioner's assent to 
an alienation-Legal effect thereof. 
A family arrangement can, as a matter of Jaw, be inferred 
from .a long course of dealings between the parties. 
It is well settled that a compromise or family arrangement i3 
based on the assumption tha! there is an antecedent title of some sort 
in the parties and the agteement acknowledges and defines what that 
title is, each party relinquishing all claims to property other than 
that falling to his share and recognising the right of the others, as 
they had previously asserted it, to the portions allotted to them 
respectively. That explains. why no conveyance is required in thcsi..: 
cases to pass the title from the one in whom it resides to the person 
receiving it under the family arrangement. It is assumed that the 
title claimed by the person receiving 
th~ property under th-: 
arrangement had always res!ded in him or her so far as the property 
~alHng to his ·or her share is concerned and therefore no coriveyance 
ts necessary. 
But in view of the fact that the Courts lean strongly in favour 
of family arrangements that bring about harmony in a family and 
do .justice to its various members and avoid, in znticioation, future 
disputes which might ruin them all the Supreme C0urt, carrying the 
principle further, upheld an arrangement under which one set of 
members abandons all claim to all title and interest in all the pro-
perties in dispute and acknowledges that the sole and absolute title 
to all the properties resides in only one of their number (provided he 
or she had claimed the whole and made such an assertion of title) 
and are content to take such properties as are assigned to their shares 
as gifts pure and simple from him or her, or as a Conveyance for 
consideration when consideration is present. 
The legal position in such a case would be this. The arrange-
ment or compromise would set out and define that the title claimed 
by A to all the properties in dispute was his absolute title as claimed 
and asserted by him and that it had always resided in him. Next, it 
would effect a transfer by A to B, C and D (the other members to 
the arrangement) of properties ~, Y and Z; and thereafter B, C •nd 
D would hold their respective titles under the title derived from A. 
But in that event, the formalities of law about the passing of title 
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2S.C.R. 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
23 
by transfer would have to be obser\'ed, and unde1> the present state 
of law either registration or twelve year's' adverse possession woilld 
be necessary. But in the present case the arrangement was made in 
1875 when the Transfer of Property Act was not in force and no 
writing was required; and as there is no writing, the Registration 
Act does not apply either. 
Therefore; the oral arrangement of 1875 
would be sufficient to pass title in this way and that is what 
happened. 
Once a reversioner has ·given his assent to an alienation,. whe-
ther at the time, or as a part of the transaction, or later as a. distinct 
and separate a'ct, he is bound though others may not be, and having 
given his assent he cannot go back on it to the detriment of other 
persons; all the more so when he himself receives a benefit. 
It is settled law that an aHenation by a widow in excess of her 
powers is not altogether void but only voidable by the reversioners, 
who may either singly or as a body be precluded from exercising 
their right to avoid it either by express ratification or by acts which 
treat it as valid or bindinfi. 
The principle applicable to the present case is a rule underlying 
many branches of the law which precludes a person who, with full 
knowledge of his rights, has· once elected to assent to a transaction 
voidable at his instance and has thus elected not to exercise his 
right to avoid it, . from going back on that and a\'oiding it at a 
later ~tag,~. Having made his election he is bound by it. 
Held, that in the present cas» the plaintiff who is in titulo now 
that the· succession has opened out, had unequivocally assented to 
the arrangement with full knowledge of the facts and accepted bene-
fit qnder it, so he is now precluded from avoiding it, and any 

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