(1.) This second appeal relates to a claim for maintenance, past and future by the plaintiff, the widow of Doddapaneni Narasimham, from joint family properties in the hands of his surviving brother, the defendant. The plaintiff claimed Rs. 2200/- for past maintenance and Rs 540/- per year for future maintenance and prayed for a charge on a suitable portion of the joint family properties specified in Schedule A to the plaint. It was found by the Courts below that the annual income of the joint family properties was Rs. 1800/- per annum and that the plaintiff's husband and the defendent, and their father were the only coparceners at the time of the former's death. The father died before the suit. The plaintiff owns 8 acres of land absolutely as her stridhanam and another 8 acres as a limited owner and heir to her husband's separate property. The annual income derived by her from the 8 acres inherited from her husband has been found to be Rs.750/-. The lower Appellate court awarded Rs. 1200/- for arrears of maintenance and Rs. 300/- per annum for future maintenance but directed that the maintenance was recoverable only from the income of and as a charge on the 8 acres inherited by the plaintiff from her husband. In other words the joint family properties in which the plaintiff's husband had a half share when he died were wholly exonerated from liability for her maintenance. The point in this second appeal is whether the decision of the lower appellate court is correct in law.
(2.) In support of its conclusion, the Lower Appellate Court relies on a passage in Mayne's Hindu Law, 11th Edition, paragraph 696, page 828 which runs as follows:
(3.) In Vellaiyappa Chetty v. Natarajan , the Judicial Committee compared the position of an illegitimate son of a shudra in relation to joint family property in the hands of his father's coparceners to that of a widow and observed that "the illegitimate son is not entitled to demand a partition of the joint family property in their hands, but he is entitled as a member of the family to maintenance out of that property; that his position in this respect is analogous to that of widows and disqualified heirs to whom the law allows maintenance because of their exclusion from heritance and from a share on partition." Referring to the question whether an illegitimate son who happened to inherit the separate property of his father would be entitled to claim maintenance out of the joint family property, the Judicial Committee said: