NESAMMA NADACHI Vs. MUTHUKANNU NADAR PAUL NADAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE civil revision petition raises an interesting question of Hindu law on which there is no authoritative decision of this Court. Petitioner Nesama Nadachi is the full sister of the plaintiff in O. S. No. 635 of 1967 on the file of the Court of the district Munsif padmanabhapuram who died on 17-7-1968. The respondent-Muthukannu Nadar Paul Nadar is the step-brother of the deceased plaintiff and on his application both the petitioner and the respondent were held to be the legal heirs of the deceased plaintiff and the respondent has been impleaded as the second plaintiff in the suit.

(2.) THE question for consideration in this civil revision petition is whether the petitioner-defendant, as the full sister of the deceased plaintiff excludes the respondent step-brother of the deceased plaintiff by virtue of Section 18 of the hindu Succession Act.

(3.) SECTION 18 of the Hindu Succession Act is as follows :-" heirs related to an intestate by full blood shall be preferred to heirs related by half blood if the nature of the relationship is same in every other respect. " in Mullah's Principles of Hindu Law, 13th Edn, at page 852, it is stated that Section 18 of the Hindu Succession Act is a substantial reproduction of the rule of Hindu law whereby relations of the whole blood preferred to those of the half blood. In fact at page 918 of N. R. Raghavachariar's Hindu Law 5th edn, the same view is expressed and it is pointed out that even under the Hindu law prior to the Hindu succession Act, in the case of the same degree of relationship to the propositus, the whole blood excluded the half blood. It appears from the same page of the above text that having regard to the general scheme of the Hindu law of succession, the preference of the whole blood over the half blood is confined to the relations of the same degree. At page 852 in Mullah's Principles of Hindu law 13th edn the learned author has observed that the words "if nature of relationship is the same in every other respect" in Sec. 18 of the Hindu Succession Act may require judicial interpretation. The learned author has rightly pointed out that it is plain that a full brother is preferred to half brother and a full sister is preferred to a half sister and he has observed that a doubt may perhaps be raised as to whether the nature of the relationship with the intestate of his brother and sister enumerated in Entry II of class II of the Schedule can be said to be the same in every respect and a full brother would be preferred to a half sister or a full sister would be preferred to a half brother and the same doubt may be raised in other cases where the competing heirs are similarly related to the intestate. He has proceeded to observe as follows :--