MEENAKSHI AND THREE ORS Vs. MUNIANDI PANIKKAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I have bad the advantage of reading the judgment which my learned brother is about to deliver, and concur in it, I shall therefore merely state shortly the negative reasons, for which I think that the appellants legal argument must be rejected,

(2.) The case, it seems to me, must be decided on the broad ground that it is for the appellants to show that the illegitimate daughter of a woman, who lived in adultery, inherits her stridhanam, over which she had full power, in preference to her legitimate son; and that they have neither produced any direct precedent for such succession nor established any principle justifying it. As it is not alleged that direct precedent is available, I turn at once to the principles put forward.

(3.) Firstly, the appellants contend for the application of the law of succession applicable to dancing girls to the offspring of a prostitute, such as they allege the first appellant s mother to have been. It is not necessary to decide whether she was one, as the appellants contend with reference to Annayyan v. Chinnan (1910) I.L.R., 33 Mad., 360, and the fact that her immoral life began after her marriage, or was a permanent concubine as the facts suggest. For the argument must fail, even as put forward. On the assumption thai; she was a prostitute, there is no authority in Madras for applying to her estate the law, which has been recognised as applicable to dancing girls solely in virtue of the established custom of their caste. [vide Venku v. Mahalinga (1888) I.L.R., It Mad., 393 and Muttukannu v. Paramasami (1889) I.L.R., 12 Mad., 214], And I observe here, as in connection with the appellant s other connections, that there is no reason for a liberal construction, the effect of which would be to disappoint expectations founded on legitimacy.