RANGUBAI Vs. SUBAJI RAMACHANDRA KULKARNI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a suit by the plaintiff for maintenance which she claims from the family of her husband. She states in her plaint that she had been living with her parents since her husband s death nine years ago.

(2.) The learned District Judge finds on the facts that the plaintiff has chosen to live apart from her husband s relations and has adduced no reason to justify herself in so doing. He says: "In 1896, she filed a suit in forma pauperis to recover maintenance and certain exhibits show that negotiations were also being carried on at that time. Bat there is nothing on the record, except the plaintiff s brother s uncorroborated statement, to show that maintenance was demanded and refused before 1908." He, therefore, decides that maintenance should only be awarded from the 1st of January 1906.

(3.) Now, it may be that the claim for maintenance should not be decided according to proof of demand and refusal; we do not propose to decide it upon that ground. But, we think, upon the findings of fact of the lower Court we must affirm the judgment upon the principle stated by the Privy Council in Narayanrav Ramchandra Pant v. Ramabai 3 B. 415 : 6 I.A. 114 : 6 C.L.R. 162. In that case it was decided that by the Hindu Common Law, the right of a widow to maintenance is one accruing from time to time according to her wants and exigencies. Accordingly, it has been decided by a Full Bench of this Court, in Savitribai v. Luximibai and Sadasiv Ganoba 2 B. 573 at p. 584, that a widow s claim for maintenance should be regulated with reference, inter alia, to the amount of stridhan property which she has available for her support. Similarly, in Siddessury Dassee v. Janardan Sarkar 29 C. 557 at p. 569 : 5 C.W.N. 549, Sir Francis Maclean puts the following case: "After the plaintiff had gone to her father s house and her father, through some change of fortune, had become unable to maintain her, could it be fairly contended that the moral obligation of her father-in-law to maintain her had ceased, bearing in mind what has been laid down by the Privy Council in the case of Narayanrav Ramchandra Pant v. Ramabai 3 B. 415 : 6 I.A. 114 : 6 C.L.R. 162, namely, that by Hindu Common Law the right of a widow to maintenance is one accruing from time to time according to her wants and exigencies? In this view, the moral obligation was still subsisting at the time of the father-in-law s death."