NISHTALA SUBRAHMANYA SOMAYAJULU Vs. KANNEPALLI LAKSHMI SOMI DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant is the brother of the respondent. Both of them are the children of one Anandaraya Sastri, who was a Sub-Inspector of Police and a subscriber to the General Provident Fund. He nominated his wife, Satyavathamma, to receive the amount standing to his credit in the provident fund in the event of his dying before the money was paid over to him; but Satyavathamma predeceased him. She died in August, 1938, while Anandaraya Sastri survived till 8 March, 1946. The appellant applied for a succession certificate in the Court of the District Judge of Vizagapatam. The respondent who is his sister opposed the application claiming that she was entitled to the money. The learned Judge dismissed the application of the appellant and directed that a succession certificate should be issued in favour of the respondent. Hence this appeal.

(2.) Note 2 to Rule 17 of the rules regulating the General Provident Fund as they stood in 1926 provided, when a person named in a Form of Declaration dies before the subscriber, the Declaration shall, in the absence of a direction to the contrary in the Form of Declaration, become null and void in respect of that person.... It was therefore argued that as Satyavathamma predeceased the subscriber, the nomination in her favour became null and void, that Satyavathamma got no benefit under the nomination form, and that therefore the respondent, who is her daughter cannot get the money which the subscriber had deposited in the provident fund. This argument overlooks the fact that in 1935 the provident fund rules were revised and the previous rules expressly superseded. In the rules framed in 1935 no clause corresponding to the Note just quoted is to be found. That apart, Section 5 of the Provident Funds Act as it stood at the time that Anandaraya Sastri died contained, this provision, ... notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force or any disposition, whether testamentary or otherwise, by a subscriber to, or depositor in, a Government or railway provident fund of the sum standing to his credit in the fund, or of any part thereof, any nomination, duly made in accordance with the rules of the fund, which purports to confer upon any person the right to receive the whole or any part of such sum on the death of the subscriber or depositor, shall be deemed to confer such right absolutely, until such nomination is varied by another nomination.... The nomination made in favour of Satyavathamma was not revoked at any time, and the result is that under that section she became absolutely entitled to the money deposited in the fund. The respondent who is her daughter would therefore be entitled to this money.

(3.) This question was considered in Mon Singh V/s. Mothi Bai (1935) 71 M.L.J. 790 : I.L.R. 59 Mad. 855, where it was ruled that, the right to receive the money which was conferred by the provident fund rules meant a vested right in the money which passed to the heir of the nominee at his death. This decision was followed in Sitaramaswamy Patnaik V/s. Venkata Rao Patnaik (1944) 1 M.L.J. 198. That was a case where a person employed in a railway company had a deposit standing to his credit in the provident fund. He had nominated his first wife as the person entitled to the amount after his death. The woman predeceased him, and he subsequently did not vary the nomination. It was held that the amount in deposit vested in the nominee absolutely. An attempt was made in that case to make a distinction between nomination in favour of a dependent and nomination in favour of a person who was not a dependent; but it was held that there was no substance in such a distinction.