Nominee under insurance law has right to receive proceeds, not beneficial ownership, unless a protected trust is created.

A nomination under Section 39(6) of the Insurance Act creates only a right to receive policy money from the insurer; it does not transfer beneficial ownership to the nominee. The insured retains control over the policy, including power to alter the nomination, assign the policy, or dispose of it by will, so the proceeds remain part of the insured's estate. A policy is protected under Section 6 of the Married Women's Property Act only where it is expressed on its face to be for the wife or wife and children as a trust; a mere nomination does not create that protection. The proceeds were therefore attachable in execution.

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Issues: (i) Whether a nomination under Section 39(6) of the Insurance Act, 1938 confers ownership of the insurance money on the nominee so as to keep the amount out of the insured's estate. (ii) Whether, in the facts of the case, the insurance proceeds were protected from attachment under Section 6 of the Married Women's Property Act, 1874 or were attachable as the judgment-debtor's property.

Issue (i): Whether a nomination under Section 39(6) of the Insurance Act, 1938 confers ownership of the insurance money on the nominee so as to keep the amount out of the insured's estate.

Analysis: The language of Section 39(6) provides that the amount secured by the policy shall be payable to the nominee or survivor, but it does not say that the amount shall belong to the nominee. Read with the rest of Section 39, the provision was treated as creating only a mode of payment and a right to receive the money from the insurer. The policy-holder retained power to cancel or alter the nomination, to assign or transfer the policy, and to deal with the policy by will. The provision for payment to the policy-holder or his representatives if the nominee died before maturity also showed that the beneficial ownership continued with the insured and that the nominee was not the owner of the money.

Conclusion: Section 39(6) does not make the nominee the owner of the insurance money; the proceeds remain part of the insured's estate.

Issue (ii): Whether, in the facts of the case, the insurance proceeds were protected from attachment under Section 6 of the Married Women's Property Act, 1874 or were attachable as the judgment-debtor's property.

Analysis: Section 6 of the Married Women's Property Act, 1874 protects a policy only where it is expressed on the face of the policy to be for the benefit of the wife or wife and children, in which event it operates as a trust and is beyond the husband's creditors. The nomination in the present case was not such a trust declaration; it merely named the wife and son-in-law as persons to receive the money on the assured's prior death. Section 39(7) also indicated that where the statutory nomination route is adopted, the Married Women's Property Act trust does not govern the policy. As the insured retained dispositive control, the money fell within the class of property liable to attachment under the Code of Civil Procedure.

Conclusion: The insurance money was not protected by the Married Women's Property Act and was attachable in execution.

Final Conclusion: The application to lift the attachment failed because the nominated beneficiaries had no beneficial title to the policy money, which remained part of the debtor's attachable estate.

Ratio Decidendi: A nominee under Section 39(6) of the Insurance Act, 1938 is only a person entitled to receive policy money from the insurer, not the beneficial owner of that money, unless a separate statutory trust under the Married Women's Property Act is created.

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