VADREVU SANKARAMURTHI Vs. VADREVU SUBBAMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal raises an important question, regarding the right of maintenance. The respondent is the widow of one of the sons of one Surayya. Her husband died in 1920. In 1923 Surayya became a Sanyasi after executing and registering a document described as a will (Ex. IV-C). In that will he bequeathed his self- acquired properties to his grandsons (defendants 3 and 4 in the suit) who are respectively the sons of Surayya's two other sons (defendant 1 and defendant 2). Surayya handed over his properties to his grandsons, and thereafter disappeared out of their lives. In 1926 the respondent sued the four defendants for maintenance and in both of the Courts below she has obtained a decree for maintenance against defendants 3 and 4, which is also charged upon the property acquired by them under Ex. IV-C. Defendants 3 and 4 have now filed this second appeal, and in our opinion the appeal must succeed.

(2.) The construction of Ex. IV-A need not delay us long. Though it appears to have been treated throughout the trial and the first appeal as a will which spoke from the day on which Surayya renounced his civil rights, we think it should be more properly styled a gift deed which came into effect when possession of the properties was actually given to the appellants but whether it will be a will or a gift deed, we think the principles upon which any rights of the respondent to maintenance are or are not affected by it are the same.

(3.) We begin the discussion of the question before us by enunciating two propositions of law which are well established and have not been contested. (i) A widowed daughter-in-law has no legal right to maintenance from her father-in-law out of his self-acquired property but only what is called a moral right, and (ii) But if on her father-in-law's death that property descends by inheritance to his heirs her moral right becomes a legal right at the moment of his death, as against them and as against the property which they have so inherited.