The word ‘Malik’ is of very common use in many parts of India and it cannot certainly be regarded as a technical term at conveyancing. In the language at the P. C., the term ‘Malik’ when used in a will or other document
“as descriptive of the position which a devisee or donee is intended to hold, has been held apt to describe an owner possessed of full property rights, including a full right of alienation, unless there is something in the context or in the surrounding circumstances to indicate that suchfull proprietary rights were not intended to be conferred:vide Sasiman Chowdhurain v. Shib Narain,49 I. A. 25.”
“The word “Malik” is too common an expression in this part of the country and its meaning and implications were fairly well settled by judicial pronouncements long before the document was executed. If really the grantee was intended to have only a life interest in the properties, there was no lack of appropriate words, prefectly well known in the locality, to express such intention”.
Though the word ‘malik’ s not a term of art, it has been held in quite a large number of cases, decided mostly by the Judicial Committee of the P. C. that the word, as employed in Indian documents, means absolute owner and that unless the context indicated a different meaning, its use would be sufficient to convey a full title even without the addition of the word ‘heirs’, or ‘son’, ‘grand son’ and ‘great grandson’. Of course, if there are other clauses in the document which control the import of the word and restrict the estate to a limited one, we must give the narrower meaning, otherwise the word must receive its full significance. Especially is this so, when the rule of interpretation laid down in Mohammed Shamsul v. Sewak Ram, 2 I. A. 7, (14 Beng. L. R. 226 P. C.) has come to be regarded as unsound.
Refer: AIR 1951 SC 139
