MUNAGALA MUNEMMA Vs. MUNAGALA CHENGIAH CHETTY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a plaintiffs appeal from the judgment and decree of the Subordinate Judge of Chittoor in O. S. No. 66 of 1959. The plaintiff is the widow of M Govinda Chetty, who was the elder brother of the respondents defendants Govinda Chetty died in 1920 as a member of the joint family of which the present defendants and their father were members along with him. The joint family of the defendants was in affluent circumstances. The family of the plaintiffs father was also in very affluent circumstances. After the death of her husband, the plaintiff lived with her father. While so, the father of the defendants died in The father of the plaintiff also is dead.

(2.) The plaintiff filed O. S. No. 4 of 1938 in the Subordinate Judges Court, Chittoor for maintenance against the respondents. She then asked for a monthly maintenance of Rs. 50. That suit was compromised ultimately and a compromise decree directing the present respondents to pay a sum of Rs. 30 a month to the plaintiff for her maintenance was passed. O. S. No. 66 of 1959 out of which the present appeal arises, was instituted by the plaintiff for enhancement of the rate of maintenance on the ground that the cost of living and the prices of commodities had considerably risen and that the sum of Rs. 30 was all too inadequate to maintain herself. The plaintiff, in view of the altered circumstances, claimed maintenance at the rate of Rs. 200 per month. She also claimed Rs. 200 a year for her clothing and a sum of Rs. 20 a month for residential accommodation. She gave a schedule of the properties owned by the defendants to justify her claim for maintenance etc., and asked for a charge on those properties.

(3.) The defendants contested the suit stating that the properties shown in the schedule to the plaint gave an exaggerated account of the assets of the defendants and that the plaintiff cannot be given any increased maintenance.