UNNAMALAI AMMAL Vs. FWWILSON

JUDGEMENT

(1.) MR. Rajagopal Iyengar has argued this appeal with great courage but the course of decisions in this Presidency and elsewhere is completely and absolutely against him though he has been able to call one or two dicta which are susceptible of being construed as a hint that a wife entitled to maintenance in certain circumstances will have a charge ipso facto created. That very general language has to be very much cut down when one comes to the actual decisions. It is enough for me to cite Jayanti Subbiah V/s. Alamelu Mangamma [1904] 27 Mad. 45 where it is clearly set out that the maintenance of a wife by a husband is a personal obligation upon him arising from the existence of the relations. It is independent of the possession of any property by the husband and it is inevitably postponed to the claims of creditors Of course, it is postponed to any alienation of the husband's property and any attempt to create a charge in favour of the wife would a fortiorii be postponed in the event of an alienation of the husband's property to caeditors and on bankruptcy the whole of his property vests for the benefit of his creditors in the Official Assignee. If there should be any surplus it may very well be that the wife will be entitled to proceed against that; and she can have a declaration that, after the creditors under the insolvency have been paid, or after the composition has been effected with them, she is entitled to a charge on any surplus remaining in the hands of the Official Assignee. Indeed, if there is proved to be such, a surplus, she may be entitled to come in this very suit and ask for a charge. However, we will deal with it when it arises. As it is, in the present state of affairs the appeal must be dismissed with costs.