DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 275
what is called the co-parcenary. Let me take the other question. It is said that the co-parcenary—I hope Members understand that coparcenary is something very narrow and very limited and it is not the same thing as a joint family, which is quite a different matter—system enables the Hindus to preserve the property, to retain it, that there can be no break-up, there can be no squandering of money so to say on the part of any member of the family. A question that I want to put to the House is this : Is it true under the existing law of the Mitakshara that this property cannot be alienated, cannot be squandered ? The answer is completely in the negative. Let me give you one or two illustrations. I am taking the case of the father. The father can alienate joint property for antecedent debt. All that the father has to do is to first of all create a debt, say one thousand or two thousand rupees on a personal promissory note. Subsequently, after six months he becomes entitled to sell the whole of the co-parcenary property, if that becomes necessary for the purpose of meeting that antecedent debt. Now, a submission that I want to make to the House is this : Does the lodgment of such enormous power in the hands of a father to sell the property for purely antecedent and
personal debts ? I want the house to bear in mind that the Mitakshara law makes a distinction between the father and the manager so far as the alienation
of property is concerned. True a manager cannot alienate a property belonging to the co-parcenary unless and until it is proved that there is a family necessity
for which alienation is necessary. But with regard to the father, there is no such obligation at all. A father can create a debt personally for himself and
he becomes entitled to alienate that property for a purely personal debt which has not been incurred for the pruposes of the family. The only limitation that
is imposed upon the right of the alienation of the father under the Mitakshara law is that the debt must not be impious, must not be for an immoral purpose
and if it is not immoral, then the father can alienate the whole of the property of the co-parcenary. There is no limit at all.
Similarly, take the case of the son. It is also under the Mitakshara law within the competence of a son to demand the partition of the family property at any time he likes. I could have well understood the argument for the conservation of the co-parcenary property if the rule of Hindu Law was that no co-parcener was entitled to alienate the property, that the property must remain the property of the coparcenary, but that is not the case. The root of dissolution, the root