Institution of Karta — MCQs

All questions with answers and explanations

Read the full set here, or use the practice card above to test yourself one question at a time.

1. Courts describe the Karta's legal position as:

   • Identical to an agent
   • Identical to a trustee
   • Sui generis — a category of its own (correct answer)
   • Identical to a partner

   Explanation. Courts describe the Karta's position as sui generis — not quite an agent, partner, or trustee, but a distinct category of its own.

2. In Sujata Sharma v. Manu Gupta (2015), the Delhi High Court held that:

   • Only a male coparcener can be Karta
   • The senior-most coparcener, regardless of sex, can be Karta (correct answer)
   • A daughter can never be Karta even after 2005
   • Karta must always be the biological father

   Explanation. The Court held that since daughters are coparceners by birth after the 2005 amendment, the senior-most coparcener — male or female — is entitled to be Karta.

3. Under Hunoomanpersaud Panday v. Mussumat Babooee Munraj Koonweree (1856), a Karta can alienate joint family property on which grounds?

   • Any personal reason
   • Legal necessity or benefit of the estate (correct answer)
   • Only with a court order
   • Only after all coparceners sign a written contract

   Explanation. The Privy Council held the manager's power to charge the estate is qualified and can be rightly exercised only for legal necessity or the benefit of the estate.

4. An alienation made by a Karta without legal necessity, benefit of estate, or indispensable duty is:

   • Automatically void
   • Voidable, until a coparcener challenges it (correct answer)
   • Always valid regardless
   • Criminal offence

   Explanation. Such an alienation is voidable, not void — it stands unless a coparcener actively challenges it in court and has it set aside.

5. In Guramma Bhratar Chanbasappa Deshmukh v. Mallappa Chanbasappa (AIR 1964 SC 510), the Supreme Court dealt with:

   • A Karta's sale for legal necessity
   • A father's gift of joint family property to his daughter (correct answer)
   • A partition by metes and bounds
   • A reunion of the family

   Explanation. A Karta cannot give away family property, with one narrow exception: a reasonable gift of a small part of immovable property for a pious purpose. Later cases say that a gift made out of love and affection is not for a pious purpose.

6. Pious obligation makes a son liable to pay off his father's debts even without personal benefit, provided the debt is:

   • Avyavaharika
   • Vyavaharika (correct answer)
   • Incurred after 2004
   • Guaranteed by the mother

   Explanation. Pious obligation applies only to vyavaharika (lawful, morally acceptable) debts — not to avyavaharika (illegal or immoral) ones.

7. Under Section 6(4) of the Hindu Succession Act, as inserted in 2005, courts no longer recognise a right to proceed against a son, grandson or great-grandson solely on the ground of pious obligation for debts after:

   • 1 January 1956
   • 9 September 2005 (correct answer)
   • 20 December 2004
   • 1 April 2010

   Explanation. Section 6(4) applies after 9 September 2005. A debt contracted before that date is saved: the creditor's right and any alienation made for the debt stay enforceable under the old rule.

8. A Karta's power to spend for a family funeral or religious ceremony falls under which of the three grounds for alienation?

   • Legal necessity
   • Benefit of estate
   • Indispensable duties (correct answer)
   • None of these — such spending is never permitted

   Explanation. Funeral and religious ceremonies fall under 'indispensable duties', the third recognised ground for a Karta's binding alienation.