Summary
The Court held that a perpetual leasehold Nazul property acquired by the former ruler of Maihar formed part of his impartible estate, rather than coparcenary property. Loss of sovereignty and the Hindu Succession Act did not create previously nonexistent coparcenary rights in the property. The contrary presumption was not established merely by its location outside the princely State or its leasehold character. The ruler could dispose of it by will.
Issues
- Whether the property belonged to the ruler’s impartible estate or a joint-family coparcenary.
- Whether merger or the Hindu Succession Act converted it into coparcenary property.
- Whether its Nazul leasehold character and external location displaced the governing presumption.
Provisions considered
- Section 5(ii), Hindu Succession Act, 1956The exception preserved estates descending to a single heir under the specified covenants, agreements or enactments; it informed the distinction between former rulers’ estates and ordinary impartible holdings. (¶¶ 32, 33, 35, 36, 39)
Held
- A joint Hindu family is distinct from a coparcenary. An impartible estate is clothed with incidents of separate property, excluding birthrights to partition or restrain alienation. For sovereign rulers, impartibility and primogeniture were presumed; alienation or testamentary disposition was permissible subject to an established contrary limitation. (¶¶ 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
- Merger did not itself convert the former ruler’s property into ancestral coparcenary property or create rights absent before merger. The protected succession arrangements and Section 5(ii) were distinct from ordinary zamindari or jagir customs. Succession here opened in 1968, before repeal of Article 362. (¶¶ 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40)
- Leasehold Nazul status and location outside the ruler’s State did not alone rebut the presumption that the property formed part of the sovereign estate. Its inheritance by successive rulers to the exclusion of other sons supported that character, and no sufficient contrary evidence was produced. (¶¶ 41, 42, 43)
- The property was not coparcenary property and Brij Nath Singh had power to transfer it inter vivos or bequeath it. The High Court’s final findings therefore stood. (¶¶ 43, 44)
Result
Appeals dismissed without costs. The High Court’s final findings that the property belonged to the impartible estate and could validly be bequeathed by Brij Nath Singh were affirmed.