KARTA
KARTA
• Manager of a joint Hindu family is known as Karta.
• Only a coparcener can be a Karta.- Commissioner of
Income Tax v. Seth Govindram Sugar Mills, AIR 1966
SC 24.
• So long as the members of a family remain undivided,
the senior most male member of the family is the Karta.
• Managership of a joint family is a creature of law.
• Position of Karta is honorary in nature- no remuneration.
CONTINUED
• Can there be two kartas?
• U.O.I v. Sree Ram- AIR 1965 SC 1531--- two persons
may look after the affairs of the joint family but cannot
act as karta.
• Can a minor be a karta?
• He can act as a karta of the joint family through his
natural guardian, his mother, where father’s whereabouts
are not known.--- Jaggernath Singh v. Narayan---- AIR
1965 AP 300.
WHO CAN BE A KARTA?
• Senior most male member of a Joint Hindu family-
exceptions.
• Not dependent upon consent of other members
• Age or health not deciding factor for removal of karta.
• Must have an interest in the joint family property.
• Only a coparcener can be a karta.
• May be terminated by resignation or relinquishment.
• Minor can be a karta and be represented by the mother if
father’s whereabouts are unknown.
RESPONSIBILITIES OF KARTA
• Primary responsibility of providing food, shelter,
clothing
• Maintenance, education, marriage, funeral and other
religious ceremonies.
• Acts as representative of family in legal matters
POWERS OF KARTA
• Manage family affairs
• Right of representation
• Receive and spend family income– Control over the
income
• Alienation of joint family property
• Acknowledge and contract debts for family purpose or
business purpose
• Settle family disputes
• Borrow money for family business or family purposes
POINTS TO CONSIDER
• Extent of liability of other members for a debt contracted
by the karta----- creditor can only proceed against the
joint family property and not the separate property of the
members of the joint family, unless those members were
a party to the contract or had ratified the contract
subsequently.
• Can the creditor proceed towards the separate property of
the karta?
ALIENATION OF JOINT FAMILY PROPERTY
• Nature and scope of alienation
• The alienation must be in good faith.
• Vijananeshwar in Mitakshara states that joint family
property can be alienated under three situations-
• 1) Apatkale- emergency
• 2) Kutumbaarthe- sustenance of family
• 3) Dharmarthe- pious purpose
• Later interpreted as-
• 1) Legal necessity
• 2) Benefit of estate
• 3) Performance of religious and indispensible duties
DOCTRINE OF LEGAL NECESSITY
• Present status.
• Payment of government revenue and debts payable out of
the family property.
• Maintenance of coparceners and members of their
families.
• Marriage expenses of coparceners and their daughters.
• Costs of necessary litigation in recovery or preservation
of estate.
• Costs of defending head of joint family or any other
member against a criminal offence.
CONTINUED
• Benefit of the family.
• Enlarge or improve the estate.
• Preservation of the estate.
• Protection from deterioration.
• Karta must act with prudence.
• What constitutes benefit of estate will vary from case to
case basis.
• Do other coparceners have any remedy against alienation
done by karta against their wishes???
• 1) Can seek for partition of the joint family property and
for recovery of possession of his/her share.
• 2) Cannot ask for injunction against the alienation
generally but only in case of waste or ouster– Sunil
Kumar v. Ram Prakash, AIR 1988 SC 576.
• Burden of proof on whom???
• Whether Consent necessary???
IMPORTANT CASES
• Hanooman Persaud v. Mussumat Babooee, (1856)
• (i) The guardian has a limited or qualified power to
create a burden on the minor’s property.
• (ii) This power can only be exercised in the case of
necessity or for the benefit of the estate.
• (iii) “The actual pressure on the estate, the danger to be
averted or the benefit to be conferred upon it, in the
particular instance is the thing to be regarded.
• Pandurang Dahake v. Pandurang Gorle, (1945) The
widowed mother passed a promissory note for necessity
as guardian of her two minor sons. She was a defacto
manager and was held to have managerial powers, and
the sons could not repudiate the debt
CONTINUED
• Kehar Singh v. Nachittar Kaur, AIR 2018 SC 3907-
Karta has every right to sell the suit land belonging to
family to discharge the debt liability and spend some
money to make improvement in agricultural land for the
maintenance of the family. It was declared to binding on
the son.
DAUGHTER AS KARTA
• After the Hindu Succession Amendment Act 2005,
daughters are coparceners.
• Can they also be the karta?
• Usually in presence of a male member, capable of acting
as a karta, he would become the karta.
• Sujata Sharma v. Manu Gupta decided on 22nd
December 2015.
WHO CAN ALIENATE THE COPARCENARY PROPERTY?
• Coparceners, where they are adults
• Karta as discussed
• The father
• Sole surviving coparceners
ALIENATION BY SOLE SURVIVING COPARCENER
• Entitled to dispose of the coparcenary property as if it
was his separate property.
• No need for legal necessity
• Can make a gift or testamentary disposition through will.
• If there are widows of other coparceners, then they have
a right to seek maintenance.
ALIENATION BY FATHER
• Hindu father has special powers to alienate the
coparcenary property.
• He can make a gift of ancestral movable and immovable
property
• Sell or mortgage ancestral property
(movable/immovable), including the interest of his son,
grandson and great grand son for the payment of his own
debt, provided the debt must have been antecedent and
for moral and legal purposes.
• Legal necessity and benefit of estate
