LAWS(PVC)-1940-12-60

TETALI SURAYYA Vs. KARRI PEDIA BALAKRISHNAYYA

Decided On December 11, 1940
TETALI SURAYYA Appellant
V/S
KARRI PEDIA BALAKRISHNAYYA Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Just before the marriage of Bulli Venkamma her father was given Rs. 800 by her prospective husband's father for the purchase of jewels and saree samans. Now that she is dead there are two sets of claimants for the property that was purchased with this Rs. 800. They are her husband, the first defendant, who claims as the heir of his son, the second defendant, who died pending suit and who in his turn claimed as the Stridhana heir of his mother. The other claimants are the plaintiffs, who are the brothers of Bulli Venkamma, who say that this property was sulka, in which case the brothers are the persons first in the list of those entitled to succeed to that particular kind of Stridhana property. Both the courts below found that the property was not sulka and that consequently it descended to her son in the way that Stridhana property ordinarily does....

(2.) Mr. Raghava Rao relies on the definition of sulka in the Smriti Chandrika, in which it is defined as wealth received as the price of household utensils, of beasts of burden, of milch cattle, or ornaments. In the Mitakshara, on the other hand, sulka is defined as a gratuity for which a girl is given in marriage, regarding which Trevelyan says in his third edition of his Hindu Law at page 475: According to the more usual view, this was the gratuity for the receipt of which a girl is given in marriage. It was originally paid to the father as the price of the bride, but when that was forbidden the father received it for the bride, and it became her property, as her dowry.

(3.) Much the same is said of sulka in Ghose's Hindu Law Vol. I at page 331. Mr. Rama Rao, relying on the origin of this particular kind of property, contends that sulka is not a form of gift which pertains to the Brahma form of marriage and is given only in the Asura form. I do not however find any authority for this in the text books or in the original texts that have been cited to me. On the contrary, sulka is discussed in the text books with other forms of Stridhana property, and this distinction is not drawn. It would seem that when, instead of the father's receiving property for himself, he took it and gave it to the bride, it came to be regarded as unobjectionable by the ancient authorities and was therefore permitted even in connection with the Brahma form of marriage.