N. APPAVU UDAYAN AND ANR. Vs. NALLAMMAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE material facts in this Letters Patent Appeal can be stated shortly. The plaintiff's husband and the two defendants were brothers and together with their father, they formed a joint Hindu family governed by the Mitakshara school of Hindu law. By a deed of partition, dated 31st December, 1924, the family was disrupted and each member was allotted and took a one -fourth share of the family property; after the partition each lived separately from the others. The plaintiff's husband died in 1929; the plaintiff sold the property which devolved upon her from her husband and utilised the proceeds to discharge his debts, the surplus remaining was a sum of about Rs. 85, or its equivalent. She was in indigent circumstances, her father -in -law took her into his house and maintained her out of his self -acquired property, until he died in 1943. Upon his death, the two defendants, as the heirs of their father, inherited his self -acquisitions.

(2.) IN the suit, out of which this appeal arises, the plaintiff claimed maintenance from the defendants, on the ground that, during his life -time her father -in -law was under a moral obligation to support her, on his death that obligation ripened into a legal liability of the sons, as their father's heirs, to maintain her to the extent of the property which they had inherited from their father. The learned District Munsiff of Kulitalai decreed the suit in the plaintiff's favour and fixed the amount of maintenance; the learned Subordinate Judge of Trichinopoly allowed the defendants' appeal and dismissed the "suit. In second appeal by the plaintiff to this Court, Kuppuswami Aiyar, J., restored the decree of the learned District Munsiff. This appeal is preferred by the defendants against the decision of Kuppuswami Aiyar, J.

(3.) IN all the decisions cited, the two obligations, moral and legal, are not expressed to be confined to the instance when a widowed daughter -in -law is penniless but the obligations have general application regarding the moral liability of the father -in -law and the legal liability of his heirs to maintain a widowed daughter -in -law. In argument, reference was made to the penniless state of the daughter -in -law and, it was contended, that indigence must exist and is an essential factor before liability can be established. There is no warrant for such contention in the authori -tative decisions.