KONGSHI Vs. KANDAJI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 1. In this case a Hindu widow, Mt. Girji, in possession and management of her husband's estate, executed a bond for Rs. 400 on 25th May 1923. After Girji's death the creditor brought the suit out of which this appeal arises to recover the amount due on the bond from her daughter, Kongshi, who is the reversioner to whom the estate passed on Girji's death. The lower appellate Court, disagreeing with the trial Court, has found that the estate in Kongshi's hands is liable for the debt and has passed a decree acordingly.

(2.) GIRJI 's husband, Vithoba, left some land, houses and a money-lending business. The debt in question was incurred by Girji for cultivation and other expenses, the lower appellate Court's view being that the borrowing was rendered necessary by Girji's money being out on loan in connexion with the money-lending business and not by any careless or imprudent management on her part. But it is argued on behalf of the appellant that even so the debt cannot be recovered from the estate because no charge thereon was created. My view of the law applicable to the present case is that property in the hands of Hindu reverioner is liable to satisfy a debt, not secured on such property, which a widow, while enjoying a widow's estate, has properly incurred in the course of management on the credit of the estate, though no specific charge is created. Gadgeppa Desai v. Apaji Jivanrao [1878] 3 Bom. 237 is against this view. In that case the money was advanced on the widow's personal, credit; so also in Bhagwantrao Abaji v. Ramanath Kaniram A.I.R. 1928 Bom. 310, in which reliance was placed upon Gadgeppa Dasai v. Apaji Jivanrao [1878] 3 Bom. 237 the credit was given to the widow personally; but it was held that the property in the hands of the reversioner was not liable, not on the ground that the debt was incurred on the widow's personal credit, but because the debt, though properly incurred in the management of the estate, was not secured on the property. This view is also taken in Dhiraj Singh v. Manga Ram [1897] 19 All. 300. But in Regella Jogayya v. Venkaiaratnamma [1910] 33 Mad. 492, it was held that a debt contracted by a widow as representative of the estate, for the purposes of the estate, will be binding on it in the hands of the reversioners, though no formal charge on the estate is created when the creditor looks not to the porsonal creadit of the widow but to her as representative of the estate and relies on the credit of such estate. This decision was not dissented from in Bhagwantrao Abaji v. Ramanath Kaniram A.I.R. 1928 Bom. 310 in the head-note it is inaccurately referred to as having been followed; and the latter decision and the other two decisions to the same effect mentioned above seem to me to go unnecessarily far in requiring a formal charge to be created before the estate in the hands of the reversioner will be liable.