DEBI MANGAL PRASHAD SINGH Vs. MAHADEO PARSHAD SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question raised in this appeal appears to us to be concluded by the decision in the case of Chhiddu V/s. Naubat 24 A. 67. The facts are these. On the 4 of January, 1893 the plaintiff, who was then a minor, instituted a suit by his mother Musammat Dharamraj Kunwari as guardian for partition of the estate to which he and the defendants were jointly entitled. In that case Musammat Sahibzid Kunwari, the grandmother of the plaintiff, applied under Section 32 of the old Civil P. C. and was made a defendant in the suit. According to the allegation contained in paragraph 6 of the plaint in this case, the entire family property was, by a decree of the 22 January, 1894, which was upheld by the High Court on the 12 of June 1895, divided into four equal shares of which one share was allotted to the plaintiff, one share to Sahibzad Kunwari and one share each to Mahadeo Singh and Sitla Bakhsh Singh. The plaintiff is the grandson of Gaya Prasad Singh whose widow was Sahibzad Kunwari. Graya Prasad Singh left three sons, namely Sheo Prasad Singh, the father of the plaintiff, Debi Mangal Prasad Singh and two other sons namely, the before named Mahadeo Prasad Singh and Sitla Bakhsh Singh.

(2.) The suit out of which this appeal has arisen is concerned with the one-fourth share which in the earlier suit was apportioned to Sahibzad Kunwari, she having died on the 9 of November 1900. The plaintiff claims to be entitled to one-third of that share. The defendants, Mahadeo Singh and Sitla Bakhsh Singh, resisted the suit on the ground that the share, to which Sahibzad Kunwari was entitled, was her stridhan and according to the rules of the Mitakshara they as her nearest relatives were entitled to it. The Court below decided in favor of the defendants and dismissed the plaintiff's claim.

(3.) The present appeal has been preferred and the contention of the learned advocate for the plaintiff-appellant is that under a recant ruling of the Privy Council we must hold that the decision in the case of Chhiddu V/s. Naubat 24 A. 67, to which we have referred, must be treated as overruled. This was a decision of a Bench of this Court to which one of us was a party. It was to the effect that according to the Mitakshara the share, which the mother in a joint Hindu family obtains after the death of the father on partition of the joint family property between the mother and the sons, becomes the mother's stridhan, which devolves on her death upon her own heirs and not upon the heirs of her husband. The question in the case appears to have been carefully considered and the ruling has been followed in several later cases including the case of Gambhir Singh v. Makraddhuj 4 A.L.J. 673 : A.W.N. (1907), 203. In this last mentioned case it was contended that, having regard to the ruling of the Privy Council in Sheo Shankar Lal V/s. Debi Sahai 25 A. 438 : 7 C.W.N. 831, the rulings of this Court must be deemed to be of no authority. The ruling in question is not a ruling upon the paint which is now before the Court. What their Lordships in that case held was that under the Hindu Law of the Benares School property, which a woman has obtained by inheritance from a female, is not her stridhan in such a sense that on her death it passes to her stridhan heirs in the female line to the exclusion of males. This is not the question which is before us. Same of the considerations which arise in that case may have a bearing upon the point before us. The question is by no means free from difficulty, as has been pointed out in the case of Chhiddu V/s. Naubal 24 A. 67. We think that we ought to abide by that decision unless and until it is reversed by their Lordships of the Privy Council. We do not think that we ought to go behind it and we, therefore, dismiss this appeal with costs including fees in this Court on the higher scale.