The position of manager in a joint family cannot be compared with a trustee or an agent or a partner in a firm under any legal system of the world. In this connection the Privy Council observed: “The relation of such person is not that of a principal or agent or of partner, it is more like that a trustee and cestui que trust.
But he is not a trustee in the sense that he is liable to account for past dealings with the family property nor is he under same obligation to economise and to save as would be the case with a paid agent or trustee”.
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Under Dayabhag law there is closer approximation in the status of a Karta and a trustee. Cowell in Tagore Law Lectures has observed: He is a sort of representative owner, his independent rights being limited on all sides by the co-relative rights of others and burdened with a liability со-extensive with the ownership to provide for the maintenance of the family.
Whatever services a Karta renders for the joint family is without any remuneration, although for his strenuous and hard services the other members of the joint family can mutually agree to pay some remuneration to him. Whatever remuneration is, thus paid to him will become his separate property.
Ordinarily the right to management of the family vestes in the eldest member of the joint family, but he can with the consent of other coparceners give up this right in favour of next senior member of family.