TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1929 (11) TMI 15
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....endant 2 in this case The gift was effected by means of a document which is filed as Ex. 1 in the case, and on 19th October the plaintiff executed a document filed as Ex. 2 which in effect is a complete relinquishment of all of his rights as prospective reversioner and also purports to give full consent to the transaction evidenced by Ex. 1 to which document indeed he was an attesting witness. The question is whether by reason of his action in these matters he is to be held to be precluded from challenging the transaction. The exact wording of the question is as follows: Where an alienation without necessity (Ex. 1) by a Hindu widow of property forming part of her deceased husband's estate is consented to by the next presumptiv....
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....is on the doctrine of election. That well known equitable doctrine is stated in the leading case of Streatfield v. Streatfield decided in 1735 and most conveniently reported in 1 White and Tudor 440, and I cannot summarize it better than in the words of the learned editors in their notes to that case which begin at the bottom of p. 444. They say this: Election is the obligation imposed upon a party by Courts of equity to choose between two inconsistent or alternative rights or claims in cases where there is a clear intention of the person from whom he derives one that he should not enjoy both. Every case of election, therefore, pre-supposes a plurality of gifts or rights, with an intention, express or implied, of the party who has ....
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....him and he knows the facts. If, therefore, a reversioner, after he became in titulo to reduce the estate to possession and knew of the alienation, did something which showed that he treated the alienation as good he would lose his right of complaint. This may be spoken of, though scarcely accurately, as ratification. In some cases it has been expressed as an election to hold the deed good Modhu Sudan Singh v. Rooka [1898] 25 Cal. 1. But it is well-settled that though he who may be termed a presumptive reversionary heir has a title to challenge an alienation at its inception, he need not do so, but is entitled to wait till the death of the widow has affirmed his character, a character which up to that date might be defeated by birth....
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....e termination of any other intervening interest. The question is whether the same holds good in the case not merely of passivity but of a positively manifested intention to abide by the act of the widow. That seems to be left open by the concluding words of the passage that I have quoted in which it is said that something may be done even before that time (that is, when the succession opens) which amounted to an actual election to hold the deed good. Their Lordships do not specify what class of cases they had in contemplation. One would obviously be where the presumptive reversioner had brought himself either within the doctrine of estoppel, or had taken a benefit and thereby fallen within the doctrine of election strictly so-called as defi....