CHINNASWAMI PILLAI Vs. APPASWAMI PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs are the appellants. On the date of the, suit they were the reversionary heirs of one Chandram Pillai who died in about 1890 leaving a widow as his next heir and a daughter as the next expectant heir after the widow. A son was born to the daughter in 1893. When he was a year old the widow and the daughter executed the surrender-deed Exhibit I, dated 2nd April 1894 in his favour, he being represented by his father and guardian, the 1st defendant. That document was a complete surrender of all the rights of the two executants in the estate of the last male owner Chandram Pillai. But there is a provision in the document that the 1st defendant as guardian of his infant son and the infant himself after he attained majority, should protect the two executants, meaning evidently that they should be maintained. The infant died about 2 years afterwards, say in 1896, and the plaintiffs now sue for the recovery of the properties from the 1st defendant, the widow and the daughter having died. The. question is whether the deed of surrender, Exhibit I, accelerated the inheritance to Chandram Pillai s estate of the 1st defendant s infant son and made him the full owner of the property on that date.

(2.) That a widow could surrender her limited interest in her husband s estate to the next reversioner so as at once to vest the property in the next reversioner is now settled law, provided that the whole estate is surrendered. The point argued for the appellants is that the present case is not a surrender by the widow to the next reversionary heir but it is a surrender by the widow and the next reversionary heir who is also a female to the second reversionary heir. Even as regards this question I think there are observations in Mulugu Kotayya v. Mudigonda Chandramowli Sastri (See also Protap Chunder Roy Chowdhry v. Sreemutty Joy Monee Dabee Ghowdhrain (1864) 1 W.R. 98) which establishes the rule of law that a surrender by a widow with the consent of the next female heir to the secondary male heir can be treated as a joint surrender by both and that such a joint surrender might be treated as a surrender by the widow to the next female heir which vests the property in the next female heir for a moment and an immediate surrender of the property so vested for a moment in the next female heir by the latter to the next male heir, the result being to vest an absolute title in the secondary male heir. Next, it is objected that if the widow reserves any benefit for herself when making the surrender, the surrender is not one made in good faith in consonance with the principles of Hindu Law and hence it is invalid. In the present case the widow stipulated that the male reversioner s guardian and the male reversioner after attaining majority should support herself and her daughter. Taking first the provision for her own maintenance I do not think that a stipulation for her own maintenance by a widow can affect the legal result of the surrender. The language of the judgment in Sriramulu Naidu v. Andalammal (1906) I.L.R. 30 Mad. 145 at page 148, suggests that if a widow making a surrender imposes on the reversioner nothing more onerous than the obligation to maintain the widow, such a surrender would be valid and would vest the title in the reversioner. This is also in conformity with the principles of Hindu Law, a surrender being allowed by that Law, as stated by Seshagiri Aiyar, J., in Nachiappa Gounden v. Rangasami Gounden (1918) 28 M.L.J.1at page 24 in order to give relief to female heirs (supposed to be incapable of prudent management) in respect of the management of the property. The theory that a widow becomes civilly dead when she makes a surrender has no basis in any text of Hindu Law. The loose expressions in some judgments as to a widow being civilly dead when read with the context can mean only that the next reversioner succeeds in such a case as if the widow died at the moment of surrender. She neither actually nor civilly dies then. This is also clear from the expression about civil death being followed in one of the judgments by the illustration based upon the widow s re- marriage. A woman who surrenders is clearly not civilly dead for any other purpose than for the purpose of bringing in the next reversioner as heir at once to her husband s estate-. She continues to own her stridhanam and the obligation of all persons who take her husband s estate to maintain her which is an absolute obligation thrown by the Hindu Law cannot be destroyed by her surrender thereof. She does not become a Sanyasi because she surrenders her husband s estate. She is entitled to acquire properties, to retain her stridhanam and to bring suits and she remains competent to enter into contractual and other legal obligations.

(3.) Then coming to the provision for the maintenance of the daughter, the daughter is not, (like the widow) under the Hindu Law obliged even as a moral obligation to starve and stint herself because her father is dead and she inherits her father s property. The extension of the doctrine of the so-called life-estates from the widow to the other female heirs is itself an unwarranted extension of the commentators which however being the present law could not be criticised to any useful purpose. When adaughter surrenders to the next reversioner it is arguable that even she should surrender the whole estate and should not retain any portion of the estate of the last male owner to herself in order to vest the full ownership in the next reversioner. But the principle on which it was held in Sriramulu Naidu v. Andalammal (1906) I.L.R. 30 M. 115, that if the widow imposes any onerous obligations upon the surrenderee for her own benefit or for the benefit of her servants or for charity, the surrender is not valid, does not apply to the daughter who inherits as heir. The only condition which can be imposed on principle upon any female heir other than the widow is that the surrender should be of the whole estate. Whether, therefore, the case in Ghella Subbiah Sastri v. Palury Pattabhiramayya (1908) I.L.R. 81 Mad. 446 which went further than the decision in Sriramulu Naidu v. Andalammal (1906) I.L.R. 30 M. 115 and which held that the imposing of an obligation upon a reversioner to convey back a portion of the property to the widow s brother did not invalidate the surrender can be supported or not--in paren-thesis I may here state that that case and the case of Kareti Brahmanai Kudu v. Kareti Mahalakshmi have been followed even to that extent by a very recent case, Gopali Krishnayya v. Gangayya 6 (Appeal 373 of 1915) decided by Abdur Rahim and Srinivasa Aiyangar, JJ.--I am clear that the act of a daughter who being next heir, surrenders the whole estate, vests the absolute inheritance in the next male heir even if she received consideration for her surrender of the full enjoyment of the property during her life-time.