1. This appeal arises out of suit to declare that certain transfers made by defendant 1 cannot enure beyond her life. The suit having been dismissed the plaintiff has appealed.
2. The appellant's case may be shortly stated here. One Biseswar Das Bukshi died in 1286 leaving a will dated 8th Asin 1282. On his death his widow Ramdhani Dasi obtained letters of administration and remained in possession of his state till her death in Chet 1303. At the time of her death she was in possession if two classes of properties, viz., those that were left by her husband and those that were her stridhan. The properties the former class are set out in schedules ka and kha while of the latter in ??? ga of the plaint.
3. On 18th ??? 1303 she executed a will whereby he constituted, after her death, all the properties of the three schedules into ??? in favour of her deceased husband's family deity, Bigraha Sridhar ??? and appointed her foster daughter, Bama Sundari Dasi, defendant, the shebait for her life and the plaintiff and his heirs the reversionary ??? after Bama Sundari. On the death Ramdhani, probate of her will was ??? by Bama Sundari and she took possession of the properties as shebait. ??? however she took out ??? of administration with a copy of ??? will of the property and credits of her deceased foster father Biseswar Das Bukshi and made certain alienations of some of the properties in favour of defendants 2 to 5. It is in respect of these alienations that the plaintiff seeks the declaration prayed for in his plaint.
4. The defendants pleaded several defences, the principal among which may be stated to be that the plaintiff had no right to maintain the suit and there was no cause of action. The pleadings of the parties raised many issues in the lower Court, but in appeal the dispute between them has narrowed down to the consideration of two points only, viz.: (1) whether any of the properties forming the subject of this suit was the stridhan of Ramdhani Dasi, and (2) whether the plaintiff has any right to maintain the suit.
5. For the appellant it has been contended that Biseswar Das Bukshi by his will bequeathed to Ramdhani Dasi an absolute right in his estate, but, reading the whole will, no doubt is left in our mind that under it she had merely a restricted interest, the interest not amounting to anything more than a widow's estate.
6. The stridhan properties mentioned in schedule ga are said to have been derived from two sources, first by gift from her husband and second, by her own purchases. The alleged gift is not supported by any deed though the plaintiff in his deposition stated that the gift was by a registered deed. Neither the original deed nor a certified copy of it has been produced to establish the nature of the gift. Mention of it however is made in a land registration robkari, Ex. 30, but that document does not show the character of the gift. It merely implies that Biseswar Bukshi and his brothers made some arrangement for the future maintenance of their wives. In subsequent documents to which Ramdhani Dasi was a party the alleged gift was asserted but considering that the statements were mere admissions of Ramdhani or her vendors, no value can be attached to them.
7. As regards the purchases the appellant's case in the lower Court was that their consideration was paid by Ramdhani out of a sum of money that she had realized about seven years before from the sale of a certain property belonging to her. Its obvious improbability and the insufficiency of evidence to establish such a case have led to its abandonment in this Court, but the learned vakil for the appellant has urged that accepting that the consideration for the purchases was paid out of the profits of the husband's estate she yet would be entitled to such acquisition as her stridhan. It is now a well-settled rule of Hindu law that property acquired by a Hindu widow with the accumulations of the income of her husband's estate does not constitute her stridhan but forms part of corpus of the estate. In the present case the distinction between accumulation and current income has been pointed out and for the appellant it has been maintained that the purchases were with current income only. This contention however is not supported by any evidence and we are left to conjecture that it was so. In the case of Bhagbutti v. Bholanath Thahoor . [1875-76] 1 Cal. 104 their Lordships of the Privy Council enunciated the rule of Hindu Law in these terms: “If she took the estate only of a Hindu widow, one consequence, no doubt, would be that she would be unable to alienate the profits, or that at all events whatever she purchased out of them would be an increment to her husband's estate.” In the later case of Isri Dut Koer v. Hansbuiti Koerain . [1884] 10 Cal. 324, after reviewing the decided cases on the subject, their Lordships came to the conclusion that a widow's savings from the income of her husband's estate are not her stridhan and if she made no attempt to dispose of them in her lifetime, there could be no doubt that they follow the estate from which they arose. As in the case just referred to, so in this the property in question consists of shares in land in which the husband was a shareholder. The object of the disposition by will was not the need or the personal benefit of Ramdhani but a desire to give the property to the appellant who, though a stranger to the family, exercised appreciable influence on her. She does not appeal to have made any distinction between the original estate and the after purchases. In the circumstances we hold that the after-purchases were accretions to the husband's estate and therefore inalienable by the widow except for purposes that would justify alienation or disposition of the original estate.
8. As regards the plaintiff's right to maintain the suit it has been candidly admitted before us that if Biseswar Das Bukshi's will is interpreted to confer on Ramdhani only a widow's estate, and if none of the properties in suit is held to have been her stridhan, the appellant's case must fail for want of cause of action. In the view we have already expressed, this appeal therefore must be and is dismissed with costs.
V.B/R.K
9. Appeal dismissed.