TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2000 (4) TMI 814
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....sion Act). The Trial Court, in the suit filed by the respondents/plaintiffs, took the view that appellant no.1 had only a life interest which she could not bequeath in favour of defendant no.2 and, accordingly, granted a declaratory decree in favour of the plaintiffs. The learned District Judge, as a Court of first appeal, took a contrary view and dismissed the suit by holding that appellant no.1 had acquired full ownership of the suit property, up to her 1/3rd full interest in the suit land and she did not acquire only life interest therein pursuant to the will of the deceased. As noted earlier, in the second appeal, the learned Single Judge of the High Court took a contrary view against the appellants and restored the decree of declaration granted by the Trial Court. In support of this appeal learned senior counsel for the appellants vehemently contended that, on the facts of the present case, the right which accrued to appellant no.1 under the will of her father as full owner of the property was well sustained under Section 14(1) of the Succession Act and that the High Court was in error in applying Section 14(2) of the said Act. He tried to support his contention on the g....
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....st therein by the very same will and her 1/3rd interest was to devolve on the testators aforesaid two brothers as reversioners on her demise. Appellant no.1 claiming to have become full owner of the 1/3rd property bequeathed to her on the death of the testator on 11th October, 1960 executed her own will on 6th February, 1970 bequeathing her right, title and interest in the suit land to appellant no.2/defendant no.2. That resulted in the aforesaid suit for declaration as filed by the plaintiffs claiming to be reversioners entitled to acquire ownership in the remaining 1/3rd part of suit property. In the light of the aforesaid factual background, the short question which is required to be considered is as to what is the right which accrued to appellant no.1 pursuant to the will of her deceased father. When we turn to the will in question, we find the following relevant recitals: ..Unfortunately I have no male issue. Not only this, Wahuguru is much angry with me that the daughter of the executant namely Musammat Balwant Kaur, having become a widow is serving me and the real brothers of the executant Bayant Singh and Teja Singh, who for the satisfaction and welfare of the executant als....
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.... destitute daughter after his life time. It, therefore, becomes clear that appellant no.1-widowed daughter of the testator, was a destitute and had no one else to fall back upon for maintaining her but for the testator, her father. Under these circumstances, when the testator granted 1/3rd interest in the suit land to appellant no.1 by his will (as a residue after deducting 2/3rd interest of his brothers), even though he conferred life interest to her to that extent, can it be said that the said provision was in lieu of any pre-existing legal right of maintenance from his estate as available to his destitute widowed daughter? If any pre-existing right is culled out in her favour, at least on the date on which the will started operating upon the death of the testator, then the appellants case would squarely be covered by Section 14(1) of the Succession Act but if, on the other hand, it is held that she had no pre-existing right in the testators estate on the date of coming into operation of the will, then it could be said that she got for the first time interest in testators property under the will and consequently Section 14(2) would get attracted, as held by the High Court. Now....
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....dying intestate shall devolve according to the provisions of this Chapter:- (a) firstly upon the heirs, being the relatives specified in class I of the Schedule; (b) secondly, if there is no heir of class I, then upon the heirs, being the relatives specified in class II of the Schedule; (c) thirdly, if there is no heir of any of the two classes, then upon the agnates of the deceased; and (d) lastly, if there is no agnate, then upon the cognates of the deceased. When we turn to the schedule, we find that daughter is mentioned as class I heir of the deceased male Hindu dying intestate while his brothers are mentioned as class II heirs in category II item (3) of clause II of the schedule. However, this section could have helped the appellants if it was shown that the deceased-Sham Singh had died intestate and not after executing the will in question. If Sham Singh had died without making a will of his own properties, then appellant no.1 could have become the full owner of the entire property left by him and would have excluded both his brothers whose interest is claimed by the respondents/plaintiffs. But that situation never occurred on the death of the testator. Appellant no.1 had....
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.... is not in dispute between the parties that she was a destitute widowed daughter. That she had no issues. As the recitals in the will clearly indicate, the testator was worried about her maintenance and that is why even enjoined his brothers-other legatees under the will, to look after his daughter, after his death. It is also not the case of the respondents/plaintiffs that appellant no.1- widowed daughter of the deceased, had any estate of her deceased husband or her father-in- law to fall back upon for claiming dependency benefit. If that was so, she would not have been maintained by her father in his lifetime. She, admittedly, was staying with him. Therefore, it has to be held that appellant no.1 was a destitute widowed daughter of the testator who had his estate as the only source for getting maintenance and dependency benefits. That statutory right inhered in her even during the life time of her father, as clearly indicated by the will itself. In this connection, sub-section 2 of Section 22 of the Maintenance Act deserves to be noted. It provides that : Where a dependent has not obtained, by testamentary or intestate succession, any share in the estate of a Hindu dying a....
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....ter-in-law. Sub-section 1 thereof lays down that: A Hindu wife, whether married before or after the commencement of this Act, shall be entitled to be maintained after the death of her husband by her father-in-law. Provided and to the extent that she is unable to maintain herself out of her own earnings or other property or, where she has no property of her own, is unable to obtain maintenance (a) from the estate of her husband or her father or mother, or (b) from her son or daughter, if any, or his or her estate. Xxx xxx xxx (Emphasis supplied) Under the proviso to Section 19(1), the words used are (a) from the estate of her husband or her father or mother and they mean that she has a right apart from the right she has against the estate of her husband a personal right against her father or mother during their respective lives. The words the estate of before the words her husband are not to be read into the latter part of the clause as estate of her father or mother. What the proviso does here is to create (i) a right against the estate of her husband and also (ii) an independent and personal right against the father during his lifetime (or against the mother) if the daughter....
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.... right of the widowed daughter qua testators estate in his own lifetime and this right which was tried to be crystallised in the will in her favour after his demise fell squarely within the provisions of Section 22(2) of the Maintenance Act. Thus, on a conjoint operation of Sections 19(1)(a) and 22(2) read with Section 21(vi) there is no escape from the conclusion that appellant no.1 had a pre-existing right of being maintained from the estate of the testator during the testators lifetime and also had got a subsisting right of maintenance from the said estate even after the testators death when the estate would pass in favour of his testamentary heirs and the same situation would have occurred even if the testator had died intestate and if appellant no.1 could have become a Class-I heir. As we have already seen earlier, if the testator had died intestate, instead of 1/3rd interest she would have got full interest, in the suit land and it is that interest which was curtailed up to 1/3rd in lieu of her claim for maintenance against the estate of the testator pursuant to the will in question. It, therefore, cannot be said that the provision in the will in her favour was not in lieu of....
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....arriage or by her own skill or exertion, or by purchase or by prescription, or in any other manner whatsoever, and also any such property held by her as stridhana immediately before the commencement of this Act. (2) Nothing contained in sub-section (1) shall apply to any property acquired by way of gift or under a will or any other instrument or under a decree or order of a civil Court or under an award where the terms of the gift, will or other instrument or the decree, order or award prescribe a restricted estate in such property. In the case of V.Tulasamma & Ors. v. V.Sesha Reddi (Dead) by L.Rs. [1977] 3 SCR 261, a three-Judge Bench of this Court, speaking through Bhagwati, J.(as he then was) has clearly laid down the scope and ambit of Sections 14(1) and (2) of the Succession Act. The relevant observations at the bottom of page 268 to beginning of page 270 deserve to be extracted in extenso: Now, sub-section (2) of section 14 provides that nothing contained in sub-section (1) shall apply to any property acquired by way of gift or under a will or any other instrument or under a decree or order of a civil court or under an award where the terms of the gift, will or other in....
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....cause there would hardly be a few cases where the instrument, decree, order or award giving property to a Hindu female at a partition or in lieu of maintenance would not contain a provision prescribing restricted estate in the property. The social purpose of the law would be frustrated and the reformist zeal underlying the statutory provision would be chilled. That surely could never have been the intention of the Legislature in enacting sub- section (2). It is an elementary rule of construction that no provision of a statute should be construed in isolation but it should be construed with reference to the context and in the light of other provisions of the statute so as, as far as possible, to make a consistent enactment of the whole statute. Sub-section (2) must, therefore, be read in the context of sub-section (1) so as to leave as large a scope for operation as possible to sub-section (1) and so read, it must be confined to cases where property is acquired by a female Hindu for the first time as a grant without any pre-existing right, under a gift, will, instrument, decree, order or award, the terms of which prescribe a restricted estate in the property. This constructional app....