CHINNAM RAJAMANNAR Vs. TADIKONDA RAMACHENDRA RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The will and the codicils upon the construction of which the questions raised in this case depend are not very felicitously drawn, and the number of codicils which have succeeded each other (five in number) add to the difficulty of construing them. A great deal of the judgment of the lower Court was devoted and much of the argument on behalf of the appellants was directed to the construction of paragraphs 13 and 14 of the will. We think it unnecessary to consider this matter as codicil No. 4 is sufficient for the disposal of the main question in the case. The material part of it runs thus : "Excluding the amount payable to Venkata Krishnayagaru and Subba Lakshmi, and for the abovementioned scholarship of Rs. 6,000, the money payable for the other items shall be debited against and discharged from the profits derived from the business or transactions belonging to Venkannagaru and myself. But it shall not be out of the principal. This will shall be carried out until the boy attains his proper age, i.e., twenty years but not afterwards. The opinion of the members may be given effect to in all matters whenever necessary."

(2.) The contention on behalf of the plaintiffs is, that the legacies given by the testator other than the three expressly excluded in the above passage, were payable from the entire income of profits derived from the estate held jointly by the testator and his partner Yenkannagaru, moveable or immoveable. The contention on behalf of the defendants is that they are payable only out of profits realised up to the time the first defendant attained his 20 year (such profits being exclusive of interest received as such upon the capital employed in the business and also exclusive of the dividends of certain mill shares held by the partners as well as the income of the immoveable property held by them jointly. The contention on behalf of the plaintiffs is, in our opinion, correct. As regards the defendant's objection that the payments on account of the legacies are to cease as soon as the first defendant attains the age of twenty years, reliance is placed upon the clause "this will shall be carried out until the boy attains his proper age, i.e., twenty years but not afterwards." The argument of the Advocate-General that this passage means nothing more than that the executors were to cease to manage when the first defendant attained twenty years is supported by the next following sentence which provides for the executors opinion being obtained even subsequent to that period. Further, paragraphs 6, 7, 8 and 9 of the will also go strongly to support this argument on behalf of the plaintiffs since they contain provisions for payments which, from their very nature, might have to be made after the first defendant attained the age of twenty years.

(3.) As regards the defendant's other contention that the interest on the capital, the dividends on the shares and the income of the immoveable property should be excluded from the profits out of which the legacies were to be paid, it is dearly opposed to the ordinary meaning of the vernacular term "labham" translated in the above quotation as profits. It is a very generic expression covering different kinds of profit or gain and that it included profit by way of interest in the view of the testator himself in connection with these testamentary instruments is clear from paragraphs 8 and 9 of the will where he directs certain amounts to be laid out at interest and uses the term "labham" in respect of the interest thus to accrue. The second paragraph of the fifth codicil equally confirms this view. In the sentence "in the event of his carrying" on a different trade, the profits or losses whereof shall also belong to him, "the term used is" labham" and from the context it is impossible to doubt that it is used in its widest possible sense. It follows, therefore, that the term in question was not intended to be used in the fourth codicil in any, but its ordinary and comprehensive sense of profit, gain or income as opposed to the corpus yielding the same.