JUDGMENT P.T. Raman Nayar, J. 1. The question is, does S.6 (read with S.8) of the Limitation Act apply in a case where the plaintiff is not the person under disability at the relevant time but only an assign from such person? And, included in this question, is the question, does it make any difference that the person under disability is a party to the suit, if not, as a plaintiff, at least as a defendant? 2. The property still in dispute, 56 cents of land - for the rest the suit was compromised - belonged to the 1st defendant in leasehold right, but his title is of no consequence. In 1115 M. E. (1940-41), when the 1st defendant was about three years old, his mother, acting through a power of attorney agent, leased the property; and the concurrent finding of the courts below is that the lessees have since been in possession, the lessee at present being the 3rd defendant by venture of the assignment, Ext. D1 dated 9-7-1958, he obtained from the 4th defendant, a legal representative of the original lessee, who got the leasehold right in partition with the other legal representatives. The 1st defendant attained majority on 13-2-1958, and, three months after that, by Ext.P1 dated 5-6-1958, he sold the property to the plaintiff, completely ignoring the lease of 1115 M.E. and saying nothing whatsoever about it. The deed, however, said that the property was in the possession of a court Receiver and contained a promise by the 1st defendant to put the plaintiff in possession taking the necessary steps for the purpose. Three months after that, on 28-9-1958, less than three years after the 1st defendant had attained majority but more than 12 years after possession had passed under the lease, the plaintiff brought the present suit for possession. In it he averred that the 2nd defendant was in possession as guardian appointed by court for the 1st defendant and that the 3rd defendant was setting up leasehold rights in the property on the basis of the assignment, Ext.D1, from the 4th defendant which he characterised as a sham document not binding upon him or upon the 1st defendant. And, apart from asking for possession, he asked also for a declaration that the lease and its assignments were not valid and were not binding upon him. 3. And, apart from asking for possession, he asked also for a declaration that the lease and its assignments were not valid and were not binding upon him. 3. The simple question is, is the suit in time? The courts below have held that it is not and have dismissed the plaintiff's suit. Hence this second appeal by the plaintiff. 4. I might point out at the outset that the case is governed by Article 142 of the Limitation Act and that Article 44 has no application. On so much both parties are agreed. The 1st defendant is a Muslim, and, therefore, the lease by his mother, who possessed no authority whatsoever, is altogether inoperative, and, so far as the 1st defendant is concerned, non existent. There is no need for the 1st defendant or anybody claiming under him to set aside the lease - he can ignore it altogether - and, notwithstanding the prayer for a declaration regarding the invalidity of the lease, the suit is essentially one for possession on the basis that the lease is void. Article 44 can apply only in a case where the transfer complained of is valid and effective until it is set aside; it has no application if the transfer is void and of no effect whatsoever. 5. That S.6 of the Limitation Act confers a personal privilege on the person under disability, a privilege confined to him and not enuring for the benefit of his assigns (or even his legal representatives, excepting in a case falling under sub-s.(3) of the section) is clear both on principle and authority. And I do not think that the contrary view has been taken since the leading case in Rudra Kant Surma Sircar v Nobo Kishore Surma Biswas (ILR 9 Calcutta 663) was decided in 1883 under the Limitation Act of 1877. And I do not think that the contrary view has been taken since the leading case in Rudra Kant Surma Sircar v Nobo Kishore Surma Biswas (ILR 9 Calcutta 663) was decided in 1883 under the Limitation Act of 1877. In the first place, there is no reason whatsoever why a privilege given to a person who, by reason of mental incapacity, whether due to infancy or insanity or idiocy, is unable to manage his own affairs, should be available to a person who suffers from no such disability, and that is obviously why, in departure from the language of S.11 of Act XIV of 1859 the words, "or his representative" appearing therein were omitted in subsequent enactments making the privilege unavailable to a representative except in the circumstances contemplated by sub-s.(3) of the present S.6 - See Ramaswami Chetti v Thangavelu Chetti (1919 ILR 42 Madras 637) where a similar comparison is made with the corresponding English statute. Secondly, on a plain reading of sub-s.(1) of the section, the pronoun, "he" in the clause, "he may institute the suit or make the application" can refer only to the person described earlier in the sub-section , namely, the person who, at the time from which the period of limitation is to be reckoned, is a minor, or is insane or is an idiot, and cannot include a person holding under such a person. And, any attempt to read the pronoun as including such a person's legal representative or assign is scotched not merely by the deliberate jettisoning of the words "or his representative" but also by the provision in sub-s.(3) of the section expressly conferring the benefit of the privilege on a legal representative in a case where the disability continues up to the death of the person under disability. This implies that the benefit is not available to any other kind of representative and it also implies that it is not available where the disability has ceased before the death of the person. In other words, it is not available where a minor entitled to bring a suit dies after attaining majority, even if it be immediately after attaining majority. And, if the legal representative of a minor who dies after attaining majority cannot get the benefit, it is difficult to conceive of any reason why an assign from him should get it. 6. And, if the legal representative of a minor who dies after attaining majority cannot get the benefit, it is difficult to conceive of any reason why an assign from him should get it. 6. It is however argued on the strength of Ramaswami v Govindammal (AIR 1929 Madras 313), Bandu Annaji v Yeshwant Ramrao (AIR 1938 Bombay 358) and Thayammal v Rangaswami (AIR 1956 Madras 15) that the presence of the quondam minor on the party array makes a difference and attracts the benefit of S.6 read with S.8 so as to make a suit brought within three years of the minor attaining majority in time. With great respect I am unable to see how. Taking the present case, the lease granted by the 1st defendant's mother was void and conferred no right or title upon the lessee. The 1st defendant continued to hold the property unencumbered by the lease, and, when he sold the property to the plaintiff, he parted with all his rights in the property leaving nothing for himself. (Under S.6 of the Transfer of Property Act there can be no transfer of a mere right to sue, and I should think that there can be no transfer reserving in the transferor a mere right to sue. The sale by the 1st defendant to the plaintiff was of all his rights in the property and even if there was a reservation, which there was not, such a reservation would be of no effect). At the time the suit was brought, the 1st defendant had no title whatsoever to the property and no cause of action entitling him to bring a suit, and, that being so, I am unable to see how his presence on the party array, whether as a plaintiff or as a defendant - in this particular case there was property not covered by the lease and there was also a claim for damages against the 1st defendant so that the 1st defendant was a necessary party, but I am regarding the suit as one confined to possession of the 56 cents covered by the lease which, indeed, it now is - can bring S.6 into play. Obviously that section can apply only in the case of a person entitled to institute the suit, and it cannot be that the presence of a minor or quondam minor on the party array can attract the section when the minor has no title whatsoever and no right to bring the suit even if he at one time had the right. It seems to have been assumed in the decisions referred to that the obligation cast on a seller under S.55(1)(f) of the Transfer of Property Act to put the buyer in possession, or an express covenant to that effect as in the present case, or, as in the 1956 Madras Case, a promise to join the buyer in a suit for the purpose, would give the seller a cause of action to maintain a suit for possession after having shorn himself of all title by selling the property. With great respect I am unable to agree. It might be that the seller is interested in the result of the suit because, if the suit fails, he might be liable in damages (something that does not obtain in the present case since, in the course of the suit, the plaintiff and the 1st defendant have entered into a compromise) but that gives him only a commercial and not a legal interest in the suit - he is certainly in no better position than a person who has entered into an agreement to buy with an owner not in possession - so that I very much doubt whether he is even a proper party to the suit. In any case, that cannot give him title to sue after he has parted with all his rights in the property. It might be that by contract or otherwise A makes himself liable in damages to B if C, a trespasser on B's property, is not evicted. But, surely, that alone cannot give A a right of suit against C. And, as I have already remarked, where a person has no right of suit, his presence on the party array, whether as plaintiff or defendant, cannot have the effect of attracting S.6 even if he at one time had a right of suit and was a minor when limitation began to run. If A, who has no title whatsoever and no cause of action, joins B who has, in bringing a suit, the result should be, not a joint decree in favour of A and B but a dismissal so far as A is concerned and a decree for B. So, in a suit brought by a quondam minor (who has parted with all his rights in the property) and his assign, so far as the former is concerned the suit would be dismissed because he has no title; and the latter would have to stand on his own feet against the tide of limitation and cannot use the former's to rest on S.6 and keep his head above the water. 7. Bandu Annaji v Yeshwant Ramrao (AIR 1938 Bombay 358) and Thayammal v Rangaswami (AIR 1956 Madras 15) purported to follow the decision in Hanmant v. Ramappa (AIR 1925 Bombay 292). That was a case governed by Article 44, and the quondam minor was a plaintiff in the suit. He was the 2nd plaintiff while the person to whom he had transferred the property after attaining majority was the 1st plaintiff. The suit was brought within three years of the 2nd plaintiff attaining majority and their Lordships held (not without hesitation) that the suit was in time only because they were satisfied that the 2nd plaintiff was entitled to have the sale by his guardian set aside notwithstanding his transfer of the property to the 1st plaintiff. They regarded the suit as a suit by the 2nd plaintiff and they said that the remedy contemplated by Article 44 was open to a ward for three years from the date of his attaining majority and that that remedy is not lost by the mere fact that he purports to transfer his interest in the property, such as it is, at the time of the transfer, to a third party. But, so far as they have given any reason for holding this view, it is that in the case of a sale by a guardian which cannot be ignored and which has to be set aside, and to which Article 44 therefore applies, the transferee gets full title, though defeasible, to the property and the ward can regain title only by. Having the sale set aside in appropriate proceedings. Having the sale set aside in appropriate proceedings. Before that is done, he has no title whatsoever to the property; he has only a mere right to sue which cannot be transferred under S.6(e) of the Transfer of Property Act. Therefore, despite his purported transfer of the property, a transfer which conveys nothing, the right to sue would continue to reside in him. That reason is not available in a case, like the present where the impugned transfer is void. Despite that transfer the minor continues to be the owner of the property. A sale by him after attaining majority is valid and effective, and if, as is the case here, it is of his entire interest in the property, it leaves him nothing upon which to found a suit. 8. The view that a ward whose property has been transferred by his guardian retains no right to, or interest in, the property apart from a mere right to sue finds support in the decisions in Jhaverbhai v. Kabbai (AIR 1933 Bombay 42) and Mon Mohan v Bidhu Bhusan (AIR 1939 Calcutta 400); and that perhaps is the real answer to the anomalous consequences apprehended in Ramaswami v. Govindammal (AIR 1929 Madras 313) that, if Article 44 were not to be applied in the case of a suit by an assign of a quondam ward, the assign would find himself left with little or no time at all to bring the suit when the impugned transfer was long before the ward's attainment of majority - he would have only 12 years from the date of the impugned transfer, not three years from the date of majority - whereas he would have more time than the ward himself would have had, where the impugned transfer was shortly before the date of majority - he would have twelve years from the date of the transfer though the ward himself would have had only three years from the date of majority. Fortunately, it is not necessary for me to find an answer to this problem for the purpose of deciding this case, but, if it were, my answer would probably be that the assign gets nothing at all, the transfer in his favour being of a mere right to sue, and is therefore not entitled to sue. His suit would fail on that score and no question of limitation would arise. 9. His suit would fail on that score and no question of limitation would arise. 9. My answer would be the same were I asked - and this unasked question is my excuse for the digression in the preceding paragraph - why, to take the present case as an instance, the plaintiff should be worse off for the transfer he impugns being void instead of merely voidable. If it were merely voidable his suit would be governed by Article 44 and it would be in time having been brought within three years of the 1st defendant becoming a major. But because the impugned transfer is in a much worse position, being not merely voidable but void and therefore nonexistent, his suit must fail as barred by time. My answer is that if the impugned transfer were one which had to be set aside, thereby attracting Article 44, the 1st defendant would have had no title to the property at the time of his sale to the plaintiff, only a mere right to sue, so that the plaintiff would have acquired nothing by his purchase and the suit would fail on that score unless it could be regarded as one brought by the 1st defendant. And so far as the 1st defendant himself is concerned, he would be in a better position for the impugned transfer being void and not merely voidable. If it is void he would get either twelve years from the date of the transfer or three years after attaining majority, whichever is longer, for bringing the suit. But if it is only voidable, he would have to bring the suit within three years of his attaining majority and a suit brought after that would be barred even if it is within twelve years of the transfer. 10. With great respect to the learned Judges who decided Bandu Annaji v. Yeshwant Ramrao (AIR 1938 Bombay 358) and Thayammal v. Rangaswami (AIR 1956 Madras 15) I do not think that the decision in Hanmant v. Ramappa (AIR 1925 Bombay 292) is authority for the proposition that a transferee from a minor can claim the benefit of S.6 read with S.8 of the Limitation Act when the minor himself is a party to the suit. The decision in Ramaswami p Govindammal (AIR 1929 Madras 313), which again was a case under Article 44, is based on the assumption that the quondam minor, who was on the party array, had a right of suit and was in substance the plaintiff although in form figuring as a defendant (see the fourth paragraph from the bottom). The logical basis of that decision is - and it is to be noted that, in that case, the suit was dismissed on an application of Article 44, having been brought more than three years after the minor attained majority - that if the quondam minor did not figure on the party array, the suit itself would not have been maintainable. 11. There seems to me one simple way of showing that the proposition stated on behalf of the plaintiff is wrong. If the joinder of the quondam minor in the suit is sufficient to attract S.6 of the Limitation Act, it must necessarily follow that where the quondam minor dies before the institution of the suit, the joinder of his legal representatives should be sufficient for the purpose. But then if the minor dies after attaining majority and there was no transfer by him, the legal representatives themselves could not get the benefit of S.6 - sub-s.(3) of the section makes it plain that the benefit is available only if the minor dies before attaining majority. Why then should a transferee from the minor, who takes the transfer with open eyes, have the benefit when his legal representatives on whom the devolution of interest is by operation of law and not of their own making, have not ? I can think of no conceivable reason. 12. It is said that the law is not always logical. That might be so. The law as laid down by statute or settled by decisions is, in its comparative application to different circumstances, sometimes illogical. But one does not discover the law by forsaking the path of logic, and the method of reductio ad anomalas, if I might coin such a phrase, is a test often adopted by the courts. 13. The 1st defendant who is not a party to the appeal, either here or in the lower appellate court, has made an application, C. M. P. No. 850 of 1963, for being joined as a party and transposed as a plaintiff. 13. The 1st defendant who is not a party to the appeal, either here or in the lower appellate court, has made an application, C. M. P. No. 850 of 1963, for being joined as a party and transposed as a plaintiff. The application is, of course, welcomed by the plaintiff - it is obviously brought at his instance - but is opposed by the 3rd defendant. In my view, even if the application is allowed, it is not going to help the plaintiff in any way. Therefore, I sec no reason to consider the application on its merits and accordingly I dismiss it. 14. In the result I dismiss the appeal with costs. 15. Leave granted.