PRIVY COUNCIL

              Chintamanibhatka Venkata Reddi Pantula and another

                                             Vs.

                               Rani Saheba of Wadhwan
                                 P.C.A.No. 157 of 1917

(Lords Shaw Phillimore, CJ, Sir John Edge, Mr. Ameer Ali and Sir Lawrence
                                        Jenkins. JJ)
                                        18.11.1919

              JUDGMENT

Lord Shaw J.

1. This is an appeal from a decree of the High Court of Madras, dated 29th February
1916. It reserved a decree of the District Court of Vizagapatam, dated 7th October
1914.

2. The object of the suit, which was by a reversioner, was for the purpose of setting
aside a deed of sale - an alienation by a widow: and the pinch of the case, as argued in
the Courts below and before their Lordships, is whether that alienation is
challengeable on the ground that it is made without legal necessity. The sale took
place so far back as 5th May 1830. The widow in question survived that sale by no
less a period than 70 years, she having died on 15th December 1900. The suit in the
present case was instituted in the year 1912, within a few days from the expiry of the
period of limitation under the statute. It results accordingly that the investigation
subsequent to the initiation of the suit in 1912 was an investigation with regard to the
circumstances of a transaction more than 82 years after that transaction took place.

3. In these circumstances their Lordships - the case being singular in these points of
date - are moved to repeat as part of their own judgment the following propositions,
which represent, in their view, both the sense as well as the law of the situation so
disclosed. In the judgment appealed from the learned judges of the High Court lay
down the law as follows:
       "It is not disputed that the onus lay upon the defendant to prove the necessity
       for the sale, but having regard to the great lapse of time since the transaction
       took place, that is about 82 years, perhaps the highest on record, it will not be
       reasonable to expect such full and detailed evidence as to the state of things
       which gave rise to the sale in question us in the case of alienations made at
       more or less recent dates. In such circumstances, presumptions are permissible
       to fill in the details which have been obliterated by time."
4. Their Lordships adopt that statement of the law.

5. They desire indeed only to add that it is a matter of some surprise that so much
documentary evidence still remains : and from a perusal of it and the whole
proceedings in the case they sea no cause to doubt that the decree pronounced by the
High Court is one which ought to be affirmed. They have the less reason to doubt this
on account of the argument of the appellants presented to the Board, which appears to
have exhausted every avenue of attack open to a person challenging an ancient
transaction.

6. Their Lordships will humbly advise His Majesty that this appeal stand dismissed
with costs.

Appeal dismissed.