Gopalakrishna (D) by LRs. & Ors. v. Narayanagowda (Dead) by LRs. & Ors.
Background
The appellants claimed ownership of land through a 1955 sale deed executed by one Jankamma, who they said was the sole surviving reversionary heir after the original owner Ramanna's line of succession. The respondents, who had been in possession of the property for decades, denied this family tree and asserted that the land had instead been validly sold by Ramanna's widow, Seethamma, to her brother in 1913, from whom they had purchased it in 1954 and held possession ever since. The Trial Court ruled for the appellants, but the First Appellate Court and the Karnataka High Court both reversed that decision and ruled for the respondents, prompting this further appeal to the Supreme Court.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court focused on the law of limitation applicable to reversioners under the old Limitation Act. Even accepting the appellants' version that Jankamma was a genuine reversionary heir entitled to challenge the widow's 1913 alienation of the property, the Court held that the 12-year limitation period for a reversioner to sue for possession began running from the widow Seethamma's death in 1938, meaning that period expired by 1950, extinguishing the underlying right itself under Section 28 of the Limitation Act, well before Jankamma purported to sell the property to the appellants in 1955. The Court further noted that even calculating limitation generously from the 1955 sale deed itself, that period too had expired by 1967, long before the present suits were filed. Finding no error in the High Court's judgment, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeals with no order as to costs.
Lesson Learnt
Under Hindu succession law as it then stood, a reversioner's right to recover property from someone who bought it from a Hindu widow is not permanent: it is subject to a strict limitation period that starts running from the widow's death, and once that period lapses, the right to sue is extinguished forever, regardless of how the property changes hands afterward.