TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1976 (2) TMI 188
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.... per Rule 3 of Chapter XXVII B of the Kerala Education Rules, 1959, teachers in aided schools are also governed by the Kerala Service Rules, Part III, as regards retirement benefits. According to Rule 80, Part III of the Kerala Service Rules, every officer on completion of five years of qualifying service should nominate a person to receive any gratuity that may be sanctioned under Rules 75 and 77 and any gratuity to which she is eligible under Rule 74 and not paid to her before death. In terms of the Rules she nominated the Mother Superior, Adoration Convent, Kanjiramattam as the person entitled to receive any gratuity that may be sanctioned by Government in the event of her death in service or after retirement without receipt of such benefits, in that nomination she had specifically mentioned that she has no family in terms of Rule 79 of the Rules and, therefore, she is nominating the Motter Superior under Rule 80. Alter the death of Sister Mariakutty Thomas the petitioner herein applied before the D.E.O., Kottayam, to got the death-cum-retirement gratuity due to the deceased. Along with the application she also forwarded a heirship certificate from the Tahsildar, Kottayam, to th....
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.... of the pension benefits was rejected by the Government by their order dated 31.1.1974. Exhibit P 2, on the ground that the petitioner does not come under the category of members who are reckoned as belonging to the family of the deceased under Rule 79, Part III, K.S.R. This is challenged in this original petition. 3. So, the only question that arises for consideration is whether the nomination of the petitioner in each of the cases is invalid for the reason that there are persona alive who satisfy the definition of the word ("family") in Rule 79, Part III, K.S.R. Rules 79 and 80 read as follows: 79. 'Family' for the purposes of this section will include the following relatives of the officer: (a) wife, in the case of a male officer; (b) husband, in the case of a female officer; (c) sons; (d) unmarried divorced and widowed daughters; (e) brothers below the age of is years and unmarried or widowed sisters; (f) father; (g) mother; (h) married daughters; and (i) children of a pre-deceased son. x x x &nb....
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....iry of the period of three years the religious shall either make his or her perpetual profession or he or she can return to the world. Before the perpetual vow is taken the professed must renounce in favour of the person whom he or she likes, all the properly which he or she actually possesses on condition however of hit solemn profession subsequently taking place. After the solemn profession is taken all property which may come to the religious in any manner whatsoever accrues to the order according to the Constitution and if the Order cannot acquire or own any property it becomes the property of the Holy See. The effect of taking a perpetual vow and becoming a run is described thus in Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law, Vol. I, page 434: A monk or nun cannot acquire or have any proprietary rights. When a man becomes 'professed in religion', his heir at once inherits from him any land that he has, and, if he has made a will, it takes effect at once as though be were naturally dead. If after this a kinsman of his dies, leaving land which according to the ordinary rules of inheritance would descend to him, he is overlooked as though he were no l....
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....ough limited in its effect to property and inheritance. Again, in Catholic Encyclopsedia, page 320 the legal effects on taking to a religious profession as set forth in the Canon Law are stated with reference to those who take temporary vows and who take the perpetual vow. It is stated at page 330 that any "religious" in simple minor vows, must before joining the profession make a will disposing of all his or her property and cannot retain any property which later comes to them It automatically becomes the property of the order to which he or she belongs. This principle was followed in Kondol Row v. Swamulavaru A.I.R. 1918 Mad 402 to describe the status of a sanyasi under Hindu Law also. In the case of a sanyasi entrance to a religious order generally operates as a civil death. The man who becomes an ascetic severs his connection with the members of his natural family and being adopted by his preceptor becomes, so to say, a spiritual son of the latter. In Sital Das v. Sant Ram AIR1954SC606, Justice Mukherjea stated the law thus at page 613, para 20: It is well known that entrance into a religious order generally operates as a civil death. Toe man who becomes an as....