1. By Section 6 of the Transfer of Property Act it is enacted that the chance of an heir-apparent succeeding to an estate or other mere possibility of a like nature cannot be transferred. It is, therefore, clear that a reversioner in. expectancy cannot validly transfer his spessuccessionis; and that doctrine has been carried by this Court a step further in thet case reported as Sri Jagannada Raju Garu v. Sri Rajah Prasada Rao 29 Ind. Cas. 241 : 39 M. 554 : 17 M.L.T. 419 : 28 M.L.J. 650 : (1915) M.W.N. 626 that not only are transfers of expectancies forbidden but that contracts to transfer them, when the reversioner enters into possession are also forbidden on the ground that, were it not so held, the provisions of the Act would be rendered entirely nugatory and futile. That reasoning, of this Court has been accepted by the Privy Council in the case of Ananda Mohan Roy v. Gour Mohan Mullick 74 Ind. Dec. 499 : 50 I.A. 239 : 21 A.L.J. 718 : 4 P.L.T. 609 : (1923) A.I.R. (P.C.) 189 : (1923) M.W.N. 803 : 45 M.L.J. 617 : 25 Bom. L.R. 1269 : 33 M.L.T. 365 : 50 C. 929 : 28 C.W.N. 713 : 40 C.L.J. 10 (P.C.). In the present case the plaintiff brought a suit in order to assert his position as reversioner to the estate of one Subbaraju. He impleaded the widow and various other persons who alleged themselves to be alienees from her; and he was confronted with this that in the year 1904 he brought a declaratory suit to have his position as reversioner to Subbaraju's estate declared and that suit had been settled by a compromise and a judgment based on it, the brief effect of which was that the plaintiff withdrew his claim provided that he was given certain lands which were in dispute between the parties. I intend to guard myself from deciding this case on any wider ground than, I think, is absolutely necessary to this decision. After the very learned and instructive arguments I nave heard, I think one may fairly say that the effect of the decisions of the Privy Council referred to, namely, Amrit Narayan Singh v. Gaya Singh 44 Ind. Cas. 408 : 45 I.A. 35 : 23 M.L.T. 142 : 22 C.W.N. 409 : 27 C.L.J. 296 : 34 M.L.J. 298 : 4 P.L.W. 221 : 16 Cr.L.J. 265 : (1918) M.W.N. 306 : 7 L.W. 581 : 20 Bom. L.R. 546 : 45 C. 590 (P.C.), Kanhai Lal v. Brij Lal 47 Ind. Cas. 207 : 40 A. 487 : 22 C.W.N. 914 : 8 L.W. 212 : 24 M.L.T. 236 : 35 M.L.J. 459 : 16 A.L.J. 825 : (1918) M.W.N. 709 : 28 C.L.J. 399 : 5 P.L.W. 294 : 20 Bom. L.R. 1048 : 45 I.A. 118 (P.C.) and Ananda Mohan Roy v. Gour Mohan Mullick 74 Ind. Dec. 499 : 50 I.A. 239 : 21 A.L.J. 718 : 4 P.L.T. 609 : (1923) A.I.R. (P.C.) 189 : (1923) M.W.N. 803 : 45 M.L.J. 617 : 25 Bom. L.R. 1269 : 33 M.L.T. 365 : 50 C. 929 : 28 C.W.N. 713 : 40 C.L.J. 10 (P.C.), a case to which I have already referred draw a line of demarcation between the cases and show clearly the principle in the light of which one is to decide, that is to say, on which side of the line a case, with a given set of facts is to be decided. The distinction I mean, can be stated in this way correctly enough for the purposes of this case; that the relinquishment of a reversionary right cannot be the consideration for a compromise. But, while a man cannot relinquish his reversionary right in given properties, he can relinquish his right to say that the properties in dispute form part of the estate to which he is the reversioner; he may for good consideration admit that the properties never formed part of the estate of the person from whom he claims and, therefore, he is not relinquishing his reversionary right to that estate but is merely admitting that the properties with which the dispute is concerned were not properties which formed part of the estate to which he was a reversioner. In order to ascertain on which side of the line this case falls one has to note the circumstances and what the words of the agreement are. I need not read the plaint--nothing turns on it--but the defence in the suit of 1904 is material. Paragraph 5 of the written statement alleged that the properties in question in both these suits formed the self-acquisition of the first defendant and she was entitled to alienate it at her pleasure. Then with regard to the rest of the property para. 10 says this:
At the time of his death the first defendant's husband gave the remaining half also of the said house-site to the second defendant for purposes of dwelling with absolute rights. Since then the second-defendant has been living there with family. Later on the second defendant's husband built thereon a tiled house which at the time of the marriage of the second defendant's daughter was given away as a katnam (present) to the third defendant.
2. That was the issue that the parties desired to dispose of in that suit; and then some body intervened and brought them together and a compromise was filed in the suit and the agreement was as follows:
In respect of the 4 acres of land * * * * * together with the various fruit trees thereon the defendants shall in 30 days' time from this date execute a registered deed, with the usual recitals, in favour of the plaintiff in view to the enjoyment thereof by plaintiff with absolute rights and that thereupon the plaintiff shall withdraw this suit.
3. That is what he got and it is to be noted that he got not merely an admission that the property was considered to belong to him but a, conveyance to him from the defendants as the defendants were but for this agreement the owners of this property. It goes on to say "that in case the whole of the remaining suit property is enjoyed by the defendants with full rights according to their previous enjoyment, no dispute of any kind will be ever raised by the plaintiff." Then that is carried out; the compromise was dated the 9th February 1905 and it, was recorded on the 20th March. Meanwhile the parties had executed another document--it is Ex. V in the case and that is what is described as a release of rights executed on the 8th March 1905 to the plaintiff. I quite concede that the language of this document in places affords considerable scope for an argument of the type that has been addressed to us that on its true construction it amounts to nothing more than a withdrawal of the plaintiff's reversionary right. For instance "as in accordance with the terms thereof I waived my reversionary right to the scheduled property and by way of consideration there for the said Pulugartha Mahalakshmanamma Garu gave me by document executed this day property worth Rs. 1,000 described herein below out of what was conveyed to her by the gift deed, I have hereby relinquished the reversionary right possessed by me after the death of the said Mahalakshamma Garu".
4. On the whole I think that the true construction of this document is hot that contended for by the appellant. It seems to me that what he really did was to acknowledge the claim of the defendants that this property in dispute formed no part of the estate to which he claimed to be, and perhaps was, the reversioner. If that be so and it appears to me, looking at all the documents, to be the most reasonable construction having regard to the terms of them, all looked at together, then no question arises because nobody could possibly contend that, if that was the real effect of the transaction, an agreement come to by this man on the basis of such a state of facts without giving consideration would be a complete estoppel. I, therefore, do not propose to consider other grounds on which the same result might be arrived at and which have been argued before us, because I think, it, is enough to dispose of the appeal. I am of opinion that this appeal must be dismissed with costs.
Srinivasa Iyengar, J.
5. I agree in the judgment just pronounced by my Lord. I only wish to add a few words. In all such cases when the question arises whether the transaction was really a relinquishment of a spes successionis or a bona fide compromise of disputed rights, it seems to me that the best thing to do would be to look at the substance of the transaction apart altogether from any form which might have been given to it. If in substance the transaction is found to be only a dealing with the spes successionis, then of course, it cannot be recognised and cannot form the basis of any binding obligation. But if, on the other hand, the substance of the transaction is found to be a bona fide settlement between the parties, then, in spite of the fact that the same transaction might be represented in one of its aspects as a dealing with a spes successionis, it is nonetheless a, real compromise of disputed rights. In the present case there seems to be really no doubt whatever, having regard to all the circumstances and all the documents, that what the parties did was to recognise the right set up on behalf of the widow to part of the property on the ground that it was her absolute property and hence no part of the property inherited by her from her husband at all and as to the rest of the property to recognise the right claimed by the daughter as under a gift from her father. It is not possible to represent this transaction as in substance being a relinquishment by a reversioner of a mere expectancy. I, therefore, agree that the appeal should be dismissed with costs.
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