KRISHNA BHATTA Vs. SUBBANNA SASTRI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case plaintiff 2 with plaintiff 1 as his vendee sued for partition and recovery of a half share of the property concerned, with mesne profits. The plaintiffs claim is that plaintiff 2 and defendant 2 are the reversioners to the estate of one Gopalakrishna, who died in 1878 leaving a widow, Padmavati. It is admitted that the property with which we are con-corned was the self-acquired property of Gopalakrishna. The defendants contend that in 1895 Padmavati by Exs. 8 and 9 surrendered her widow's estate in that property to Anantha, the adoptive brother of her deceased husband, and that Anantha, who died in 1900, devised the property by will to the father of defendant 1. Defendant 3 is sued as the tenant in possession under a vaidegeni lease granted to his predecessor-in-title by Padmavati. The District Munsif and the Subordinate Judge have both dismissed the suit, holding that Exs. 8 and 9 effected a valid surrender of Padmavati's interest. The plaintiffs contest that finding on appeal here.

(2.) The documents, Exs. 8 and 9, are rather peculiar. Ex. 9 is executed by Padmavati herself, and Ex. 8, which is practically a counter part of it, is executed by her mother-in-law, Kaveramma, who describes herself as the widow of Sankaranarayana Bhatta and guardian of Anantha, the adopted son of Sankaranarayana Bhatta. Both documents start with the description that they are nishoodies or maintenance karars. Nishoody appears to mean a release deed, which would not be an unnatural description of a deed by which a widow surrendered her estate; but maintenance karar is certainly an unusual description for such a document. These documents show that Padmavati had been making. a demand for maintenance on Kaveramma. and the adopted son, Anantha, and that that was the occasion for the execution of the documents. They show that there-had been some mediation between the parties and that the mediators had recommended Kaveramma to hand over-possession of this property to Padmavati. It is provided that Padmavati is to enjoy the profits of this property for her life and that she can demise it by chalgeni or vaidegeni leases but that she has no right whatever to alienate it otherwise; and by these documents she gives up any right which she has to maintenance from the joint family funds of her husband's family.

(3.) It will be seen that by that transaction Padmavati got certainly nothing more than she was already entitled to as the widow of Gopalakrishna, Indeed what she got was something less than a widow's estate, which was hers,. and she gave up her undoubted claim to maintenance from her husband's joint family. When she did this, she was a widow of 22. She was dealing with her mother-in-law. No one can pretend that, this arrangement was a very wise one in her own interests, and, as contended for the plaintiffs, it appears to me very likely, that in entering into this transaction Padmavati was really unaware of her own rights. Mr. Sitarama Rao for defendant 1 has urged that it has been decided in Bhagwat Koer V/s. Dhannukdhari Prashad Singh A.I.R. 1919 P.C. 75, by their Lordships of the Privy Council that, even if a widow surrenders her estate in ignorance of her rights, the surrender will be binding upon her. I do not think that that is really the effect of that decision. In that case the widow had asserted her right in certain proceedings to a widow's estate; she had been defeated in those proceedings, and then she entered into a. compromise with her opponents in which she verbally admitted that she had no such right as she had claimed. Their Lordships say at p. 484 (of 47 Cal.): It is true that the documents were drawn up on the, footing, not of a surrender of an acknowledged right, bat of an admission that the right did exist; but in substance, and disregarding the form, there was a complete self-effacement by the widow which precluded her from asserting any further claim to the estate.