N APPAVU UDAYAN Vs. NALLAMMAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The material facts in this Letters Patent Appeal can be stated shortly. The plaintiff's husband and the two defendants were brothers and together with their father, they formed a joint Hindu family governed by the Mitakshara school of Hindu law. By a deed of partition, dated 31 December, 1924, the family was disrupted and each member was allotted and took a one-fourth share of the family property; after the partition each lived separately from the others. The plaintiff's husband died in 1929; the plaintiff sold the property which devolved upon her from her husband and utilised the proceeds to discharge his debts, the surplus remaining was a sum of about Rs. 85, or its equivalent. She was in indigent circumstances, her father-in-law took her into his house and maintained her out of his self-acquired property, until he died in 1943. Upon his death, the two defendants, as the heirs of their father, inherited his self-acquisitions.

(2.) In the suit, out of which this appeal arises, the plaintiff claimed maintenance from the defendants, on the ground that, during his life-time her father-in-law was under a moral obligation to support her, on his death that obligation ripened into a legal liability of the sons, as their father's heirs, to maintain her to the extent of the property which they had inherited from their father. The learned District Munsiff of Kulitalai decreed the suit in the plaintiff's favour and fixed the amount of maintenance; the learned Subordinate Judge of Trichinopoly allowed the defendants appeal and dismissed the "suit. In second appeal by the plaintiff to this Court, Kuppuswami Aiyar, J., restored the decree of the learned District Munsiff. This appeal is preferred by the defendants against the decision of Kuppuswami Aiyar, J.

(3.) There are two principles of Hindu law, each of which is well established by authority which indubitably apply to members of a joint Hindu family they are: (1) A widowed daughter-in-law has a moral, but not a legal, right to main tenance from her father-in-law out of his self-acquired property. (2) On the death of the father-in-law, if his self-acquired property descends by inheritance to his heirs, the moral liability of the father-in- law ripens into a legal liability of his heirs, enforceable against them by the daughter-in-law to the extent of their inheritance. Those principles of law are expressed in a number of decisions of several Courts in India including : Janki V/s. Nandram (1888) I.L.R. 11 All. 194 (F.B.) accepted by a Full Bench of this Court in Ambu Bai V/s. Soni Bai (1940) 2 M.L.T. 298 : I.L.R. 1941 Mad. I3(F.B.) Provosh Chandra Roy V/s. Prokash Chandra Roy (1946) 50 C.W.N. 559 and Mussamat Laxmi Bai V/s. Samba A.I.R. 1932 Nag. 11. Those decisions relate to Mitakshara families. The correctness of the principles of law has been affirmed by the Judicial Committee in Rajnikanta Pal V/s. Sajanisundaree Dasee (1933) 66 M.L.J. 148 : L.R. 61 I.A. 29 : I.L.R. 61 Cal. 221 (P.C.) where it was observed, at pages 224 and 225 of the judgment, that: The liability of Madanmohan towards the widow of his son was, no doubt, on the authorities, a moral liability, but that liability when transmitted to his sons on his death, became, in their persons, a legal liability, the measure of which, however, was restricted to the amount of the estate to which they succeeded from their father. These principles of law have been established by authoritative judgments and are applicable to a family governed, as was this family, by the Dayabhaga law. The matter is not one which can be reopened before their Lordships.