VRIJBHUKANDAS DWARKADAS Vs. BAI PARVATI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Mr. Gokuldas has endeavoured to argue, that, under the Hindu law, a mother succeeding as heir to her son takes an absolute, not a limited, estate. That point is, however, concluded by authority: bee Narsappa V/s. Sakharam (1869) 6 Bom. H. C. 215. which has been since followed in this Presidency. As was said by the learned Chief Justice in Bhau V/s. Raghunath (1906) I.L.R.30 Bom. 229 p. 237 it has now come to be recognized as the rule in Bombay that female heirs, except those who come into the family of the proporties by marriage, take absolute interests". On the ground of stare decision we must adhere to that rule.

(2.) The duty of performing the funeral ceremonies of a mother, that is, pinda dana or offering the funeral oblations, is laid down as a religious injunction binding on her son in absolute" terms by the Hindu law-(See Vijnaneshwara's Mitakshara,. Prayaschittadhyaya, Moghe's Edition, page 280)-, so much so that, even though the son is a minor and as such is not entitled" to read the Vedas, he is held competent to recite the Mantras prescribed in the Shastraa for the purposes of the shraddha of either of his parents. (See a Smriti of Gautama cited by Vijna-neshwara in his comment on Yajnyavalkya's Smriti No. 50 in the Chapter on Debts in the Mitakshara, page 140, Moghe's Edition) Omission on the part of the son to perform the funeral ceremonies on his father's or mother's death is denounced as a sin. (See the text to that effect of Sumantu and a passage from the Aditya Purana cited in Kamalakar Bhat's Nirnaya Sindhu, page 299, mana Sagara Edition). And, according to Vijnaneshwara, where an act is directed to be done and the omission to do it is stated to be sinful, the direction imposes upon the person, directed an imperative and absolute obligation to do the act (the Mitakshara, Moghe's Edition, page 192). Nilakantha, the author of the Vyavahara Mayukha, deals with the subject likewise in his Shraadha Mayukha.

(3.) If, then, Vallabh would have been bound by that religious duty had he survived his mother, Bai Mancha, he would not have been entitled to recover the charges incurred in respect of those ceremonies from her Stridhan, property. No doubt a Smriti of Yajnyavalkya, after enumerating the twelve kinds of sons known in the ancient times to Hindu law, goes on to point out that a son becomes on his father's death entitled to the father's property and to offer his funeral oblations (i.e., a pinda dana). And there is a text of Manu, cited both by Vijnaneshwara in the Mitakshara and by Nilakantha in the Mayukha, that the pinda (a funeral oblation) follows the gotra and the inheritance. The former smriti, as the context shows, relates to the pindi and inheritance of a father; and the latter is part of a special text relating to an adopted son. Both lay down the rule generally but neither can be regarded as having any application to a case like the present. If a Hindu woman dies, leaving a son and a daughter and also stridhan property of the kind which the daughter is entitled to inherit in preference to the son, the fact that the daughter takes The stridhan does not impose on her the obligation of performing the mother's funeral obsequies. The obligation lies on the son all the same and he must discharge it without any right to charge the stridhan with the expenses except under special circumstances.