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PETITIONER: LAXMAPPA & ORS

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: SMT. BALAWA KOM TIRKAPPA CHAVDI

DATE OF JUDGMENT:       06/08/1996

BENCH: MADAN MOHAN PUNCHHI, K. VENKATASWAMI

ACT:

HEADNOTE:

JUDGMENT:                          O R D E R      The  plaintiff-respondent   (who  is   now   dead   and represented by  her daughter) had a brother. She adopted her brother as  her son with the consent of her father. She thus became  the   adoptive  mother  of  the  adopted  son.  That relationship obligated  the son  to maintain  his mother. On the other  hand, she  remained a  daughter  of  her  father. Widowed as  she was,  her natural father and her adopted son jointly made a gift of some agricultural land in her favour, acknowledging  in  the  deed  thereof  that  since  she  was destitute and  unable to  maintain herself, provision had to be made  for her, for her lifetime. it was however specified therein that after her death the property would devolve upon the donors’  which expression  included their  legal  heirs. This  Deed  of  31-7-1950  was  claimed  by  the  plaintiff- respondent to have matured into full ownership on the coming into force  of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 (for short the Act’) by  the thrust  of Section  14(1) of the Act for which she filed  a suit for declaration etc. Her suit was resisted on the ground that Section 14(2) was applicable and that the gift was  conditional to  be reverting  back on her death to the line of the donors. The ultimate finding recorded by the High Court  is that  it is  a gift to which Section 14(1) of the Act  is attracted and therefore the plaintiff-respondent had become a complete owner of the properties gifted.      Mr. Devendra Singh, learned counsel for the appellants, has candidly  stated that  insofar as  the adopted  son  was concerned, he  was legally  bound to  maintain his  adoptive mother and  therefore his  half share  in the  donated  land would come  within the  grip of  Section 14(1)  to which the plaintiff-respondent could legitimately claim to have become its absolute owner. Insofar as the other half donated by the father of  the plaintiff-respondent was concerned, he points out that  there was  no such  legal  obligation  on  him  to maintain her  and thus  that part  of the  gift  would  fall within the  sweep of  Section 14(2) of the Act. Sequally, it is claimed that half of the property must return to the line of the  father who  has other grandsons, with whom he shared the property as ancestral.      The law  on the  subject was taken stock of by the High

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Court by quoting para 546 of Mulla’s book on Hindu Law, 15th Edition, which  provides that  a Hindu  father is  bound  to maintain his  unmarried daughters  and on  the death  of the father, they  are entitled  to  be  maintained  out  of  his estate. The  position of  the married  daughter is  somewhat different. It is acknowledged that if the daughter is unable to obtain  maintenance from her husband, or after his death. from his finaly, her father, if hi has got separate property of his own, is under a morals though not a legal, obligation to maintain  her. The  High Court  has concluded that it was clear that  the father  was under  an obligation to maintain the plaintiff-respondent. Seemingly, the High Court in doing so was conscious of the declaration made in the gift deed in which she  was  described  as  a  destitute  and  unable  to maintain herself. In that way, the father may not have had a legal obligation  to maintain  her but  all the  same  there existed a moral obligation. And if in acknowledgment of that moral obligation  the father had transferred property to his daughter then  it is an obligation well-fructified. In other words a  moral obligation  even though not enforceable under the law, would by acknowledgment, bring it to the level of a legal obligation,  for it  would be perfectly legitimate for the  father  to  treat  himself  obliged  out  of  love  and affection to maintain his destitute daughter, even impinging to a  reasonable extent  on his  ancestral propriety.  It is duly acknowledged  in Hindu Law that the Karta of the family has in  some  circumstances,  power  to  alienate  ancestral property to  meet an obligation of the kind. We would rather construe the  said paragraph  more liberally  in the  modern context having  regard to  the state  of law  which has been brought about  in the  succeeding years.  Therefore, in  our view, the  High Court  was within  its right  to come to the conclusion that  there was  an obligation on the part of the father to maintain his destitute widowed daughter.      For the afore reasoning, we do not think a case is made out  warranting   our  interference   in   this      appeal. Accordingly, the same is dismissed but without any order any order as to costs.