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their own lifetime. Subsequently tlie courts discovered 

 that the powers of a Zemindar were the same as those of a 

 manager of a Hindu family holding property in co-parcenary 

 under the ordinary law, with the exception that partition 

 could not be claimed by the junior members of the family 

 who were only entitled to maintenance out of the income of 

 the estate. The Zemindar, it was declared, could, like the 

 manager of an ordinary Hindu family, alienate the property 

 in satisfaction of debts incurred for necessary family pur- 

 poses, and that where there were no junior members, the 

 powers of alienation of the Zemindar were unrestricted. 

 Next, the Courts ruled that where the junior members of the 

 co-parcenary family were sons, the latter were bound by the 

 alienations made by the father even for debts not incurred 

 for family purposes, it being the pious duty of sons under the 

 Hindu Law to pay the debts of the father, provided they 

 were not incurred for immoral or illegal purposes. The rule 

 of primogeniture and impartibility was also declared not to 

 attach necessarily to the property on grounds of public pohcy 

 but was to be treated as a family custom liable to be annulled 

 with the mutual consent of the members of the family. The 

 question whether an estate was governed by the law of pri- 

 mogeniture or the ordinary law of equal division was thus 

 made to depend upon the facts of each case and the conduct 

 of the parties, there being no certain criterion laid down to 

 determine the point in any particular case without resort to 

 protracted litigation. Lastly, in a recent decision the Privy 

 Council has ruled that the Zemindar of an ancient and im- 

 partible estate is absolute owner and can dispose of it as he 

 pleases, the property being impartible only in the sense that 

 it is not divisible among the members of the family ; there is 

 thus nothing to prevent the Zemindar cutting it up into any 

 number of portions and alienating them at his will and 

 pleasure to the prejudice of the rights of succession of the 

 junior members of his family. These rapid changes in the 

 law, or at all events, in what was believed to be such by all 

 the parties interested in the question in this presidency, 

 have led to a great amount of litigation, the junior members 

 in the case of several estates which had hitherto been sup- 

 posed to be impartible having instituted suits for partition. 

 The Zemindars themselves are apprehensive that the unre- 

 stricted powers of alienation conceded to them will lead to 

 the rapid extinction of their estates and the decay of the in- 

 fluence and importance of their families which it was the 

 intention of the rule of primogeniture to conserve. This 

 apprehension seems well founded, for while in the case of 



