JUDGMENT : 1. This case has had an-unfortunate history. Mt. Munni Kunwar, the plaintiff, sued for recovery of possession over a certain house. Her casa was that the defendant Madan Gopal, who was her father-in-law, conveyed the house in question to her by a sale-deed dated the 24th of September, 1901 and that she subsequently permitted him to reside in the same up to the year 1912. Being then, desirous of occupying the house herself to the exclusion of the defendant, she served the latter with a notice to vacate the house, and the cause of action is stated to have accrued to her on the 24th of February, 1912, the date of the defendant's refusal to vacate the house in accordance with the notice. The defendant replied that he had executed the sale-deed in suit in favour of his daughter-in-law without any consideration, as a colourable and fictitious transaction, and had remained in possession of the house ever since as proprietor. He alleged that his son Bishnath Singh, husband of the plaintiff, having subsequently died, the plaintiff had gone to live with her own father and was now bringing this suit in collusion with her father, although both of them were perfectly aware of the fictitious nature of the sale-deed of the 24th of September, 1901. The case went to trial upon a plain issue of fact as regards the alleged fictitious nature of the sale deed and the passing or otherwise of the consideration. At a very late stage of the case, it seems to have occurred to the learned Munsif that there was evidence on the face of the record to show that the plaintiff Mt. Munni Kunwar must have been a minor in the month of September 1901. He seems to have thought that this incident might furnish a short cut to the determination of the suit, without necessitating a trial of any of the questions of fact raised by the pleadings of the parties. He framed a fresh issue, and eventually dismissed the suit on the ground that, whatever may or may not have happened at the time of the execution of the sale-deed of 1901, the fact that the plaintiff was then a minor was conclusive against her. This decision was affirmed by the District Judge on appeal. 2. He framed a fresh issue, and eventually dismissed the suit on the ground that, whatever may or may not have happened at the time of the execution of the sale-deed of 1901, the fact that the plaintiff was then a minor was conclusive against her. This decision was affirmed by the District Judge on appeal. 2. When the matter came before me in June last, I found it necessary, for reasons which need not now be discussed, to remand the case in order that the plaintiff might have an opportunity of placing on the record certain evidence which had, in my opinion, been wrongly excluded at the trial in the Court of the Munsif. I asked the lower Appellate Court, after recording this evidence, to re-consider its decision in the light of that evidence, and to state whether the pleas taken in the first two paragraphs of the memorandum of appeal to the lower Appellate Court ought or ought not to prevail in the light of the evidence on the record taken as a whole. I am now inclined to think that, as I was remanding the case, I would have exercised a wiser discretion if I had insisted on a clear finding of fact as to the passing of consideration and as to the alleged fictitious nature of the sale-deed. It appears that, when the plaintiff originally led evidence in the Munsif's Court, the fact that she was a minor in the year 1901 was not present to her mind or to that of her legal advisers. The case put forward by her was that the money which formed the consideration for the sale was a gift to her from her father, and that she had negotiated the sale and paid over to the defendant the money thus received by her as a gift. When the question of minority was raised, the plaintiff appears, as the learned District Judge has remarked, to have very distinctly shifted her ground. She then led evidence to prove that her father had negotiated on her behalf the transaction of sale with the defendant, had paid over the money to the defendant on her behalf and caused a sale-deed of the case to be executed in her name. She then led evidence to prove that her father had negotiated on her behalf the transaction of sale with the defendant, had paid over the money to the defendant on her behalf and caused a sale-deed of the case to be executed in her name. If this were so in fact, the transaction would really amount to an acquisition by the plaintiff's father from the defendant of a certain house and a gift of that house to the plaintiff by her father. The provisions of Section 127 of the Transfer of Property Act (IV of 1882) show that a gift in favour of a minor is not void, though it may be voidable at the option of the minor. I should feel no hesitation in holding that, if the facts were as above stated, the present suit would be maintainable. As the case stands, the learned District Judge has definitely disbelieved and rejected the evidence tendered by the plaintiff subsequently to my order of remand. He holds that whatever else may have happened in connection with this contract of sale, it is not a fact that the sale was negotiated by the plaintiff's father and the purchase made by him on the plaintiff's behalf. I think it unfortunate that the Courts below should not have proceeded further and considered the effect of the plaintiff's change of attitude and the conflicting nature of the evidence tendered by her, with regard to the plain issues of fact raised by the pleadings as they originally stood. As the case stands I have no finding before me that consideration did or did not pass, or as to whether the execution of this sale-deed of the 24th of September, 1901, was not after all, as the defendant has all along pleaded, a purely fictitious transaction. I have to look at the question of law raised in this way: Assuming for the sake of argument that in the month of September, 1901, the plaintiff, being at the time a minor, negotiated the sale of the house in suit with the defendant and paid over certain money to the defendant receiving in return the sale-deed which is the basis of the present suit, is that contract of sale void on the ground of the plaintiff's minority, or can the plaintiff be said to have become by virtue of this transaction the owner of the house in suit? The leading cases on the subject are the recent decisions of their Lordships of the Privy Council in Mohori Bibi v. Dharmodas Ghose, (1903) 30 Cal. 539 : 30 I.A. 114 (P.C.) and in Mir Sarwarjan v. Fakhuruddin Mahomed, (1912) 13 I.A. 331 : 39 Cal. 232 : 39 I.A. 1 (P.C.). The Madras High Court in Novakoti Narayana Chetty v. Loyalinga Chetty, (1909) 4 I.C. 383 : 33 Mad. 312, has interpreted these rulings as laying down in the broadest terms the principle that a sale in favour of a minor is void. The reasoning of the learned Judges in arriving at this decision commends itself to my mind and I do not think it necessary to reproduce it here. It has been suggested that the current of decisions in this Court has always been in another direction from the time of the earliest case on the point, that of Behari Lal v. Beni Lal, (1881) 3 All. 408, in which a mortgage in favour of a minor was affirmed. Their Lordships of the Privy Council in Mohori Bibi's case pointed out that there had been some conflict of decisions in the Indian Courts, and considered it necessary to review the whole question of a contract to which a minor was a party with reference to the special provisions of the Indian Contract Act (IX of 1872). Any rulings prior in date require to be reconsidered with reference to the principles laid down by the Privy Council. The nearest case in the plaintiff's favour is that of Ulfat Rai v. Gouri Shankar, (1911) 11 I.C. 20 : 33 All. 657 . It was there pointed out that the Transfer of Property Act in itself contains no provision which makes a minor incapable of being a transferee of immovable property. That case, however, required to be considered with reference to its own facts. The transfer was one by the minor's certificated guardian in favour of the minor. The transaction as a whole certainly admitted of being regarded as a gift subject to a condition, and such transfer by way of gift would be voidable at the option of the minor under the provisions of the Transfer of Property Act, to which I have already referred. The transaction as a whole certainly admitted of being regarded as a gift subject to a condition, and such transfer by way of gift would be voidable at the option of the minor under the provisions of the Transfer of Property Act, to which I have already referred. It is quite true, as has been pointed out by this Court in more than one case, [Vide Rashik Lal v. Ram Narain, (1912) 13 I.C. 573 : 34 All. 273], that there is a fundamental distinction between a contract and a conveyance but it seems to me that this point might be stated with equal accuracy by saying that a conveyance is a contract plus something more. At any rate, as the learned Judges of the Madras High Court have pointed out in the ruling already referred to, a conveyance by way of a sale either is in itself a contract or at any rate involves or implies an antecedent contract. On the principles laid down by their Lordships of the Privy Council in the cases already referred to, it seems to me impossible to avoid the conclusion that a contract of sale negotiated by a minor the minor having settled the terms, paid consideration and received in return a deed purporting to convey immovable property by way of sale, is altogether void ab initio, and that no title thereby passed to the minor. 3. This suit as brought must, therefore, fail. It has been suggested that, in the alternative, the plaintiff should be given a decree for the refund of the purchase-money. I may remark at once that I could not do this without once more remanding the case to the Court below for a definite finding as to whether the alleged sale consideration did or did not pass from the plaintiff to the defendant. It seems to me, however, that from any point of view the claim is not one which can be entertained in the present suit. It was not expressly put forward in the plaint, and it is now sought to base it on the general prayer for any other relief, which is contained in the last paragraph of the plaint. It seems to me, however, that from any point of view the claim is not one which can be entertained in the present suit. It was not expressly put forward in the plaint, and it is now sought to base it on the general prayer for any other relief, which is contained in the last paragraph of the plaint. If the plaintiff is regarded as claiming this refund of the sale consideration as money payable by the defendant for money received by the defendant for the plaintiff's use (Article 62 of the first Schedule to the Limitation Act IX of 1908), then the claim is time-barred, because it does not appear to have been brought within three years from the plaintiff's attaining majority. For the same reason the claim cannot be sustained, as it perhaps might otherwise have been, as a claim for relief on the ground of fraud. The only other suggestion which has been, or can be, put forward on behalf of the plaintiff is that the claim for refund of purchase-money might be sustained as a claim for money paid upon an existing consideration which afterwards fails. In that case Article 97 of the Schedule already referred to would apply; but it would be for the plaintiff to show when it was that the consideration failed. There is authority in the case of Amna Bibi v. Udit Narain Misra, (1909) 1 I.C. 890 : 31 All. 68 : 36 I.A. 44 (P.C.). for giving the plaintiff in a case somewhat analogous to the present a decree for refund of the money paid, and for applying Article 97 of the first Schedule to the Limitation Act to such a suit. In that case, however, as also in a similar case reported as Venkatarama Aiyar v. Venkata Subrahmanian, (1901) 24 Mad. 27 : 10 M.L.J. 217, there had been a previous suit resulting in an adjudication between the parties in consequence of which the plaintiff had failed to obtain the property for the price of which he claimed in the second suit; limitation was held to run against the plaintiff from the date of the final decision in the first litigation holding the plaintiff's claim to the property to be unenforcible. If these principles are in fact applicable to the present case, it may be that the plaintiff will have a cause of action from the date of the dismissal of the present appeal; but that is not a matter as to which it is necessary for me to express a final opinion in order to dispose of this appeal. So far as this claim for refund of purchase-money goes, I hold that the plaintiff, supposing her to be in fact entitled to such refund, has either a cause of action which has become barred by time or a cause of action which has not yet arisen and will arise only on the failure of the present suit. For these reasons I dismiss this appeal with costs including fees on the higher scale.