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1944 Supreme(SC) 29
PRIVY COUNCIL [ON APPEAL FROM THEEAST INDIES]
LORD PORTER, LORD GODDARD AND SIR MADHAVAN NAIR.
BISHUN SINGH - Appellant
Versus
SRI THAKURJI MANGLA NAIN BHAGWAN - Respondents
On appeal from the High Court at Allahabad.
Decided On : Oct. 17. 1944.
Solicitor for appellants: Harold Shephard.
Solicitors for first respondent, Shiam Lal: Douglas Grant & Bold.
A Hindu husband with absolute ownership can validly confer a full power of transfer over his estate upon his widow via a testamentary document, granting her authority to alienate the property beyond the ordinary limits of legal necessity, religious purposes, or the benefit of the estate.
Headnote:(A) Hindu Law - Widow's estate - Power of alienation - A husband, as absolute owner, can validly confer a full power of transfer over his estate upon his widow through a testamentary document, even if he does not grant her an absolute estate. Such power exceeds the ordinary limited powers of a Hindu widow to alienate for legal necessity, religious purposes, or the benefit of the estate. (Paras 35-42)
(B) Construction of testamentary documents - Where a document specifies that property shall devolve according to shastra only if the widow dies without making any "arrangement or transfer," it implies the widow was granted the authority to make such arrangements or transfers during her lifetime, which would prevent the property from devolving on the next heirs according to law. (Paras 31-33)
Facts of the case:
A property owner executed a deed gifting certain properties to his daughters and stating that after his death, his widow would have the "power of transfer" over the remaining properties. The document further provided that if the owner or the widow died without making any arrangement or transfer, the property would devolve according to shastra. The widow subsequently alienated the properties through gifts and sales. The reversioners challenged these alienations on the ground that the widow held only a limited estate and the transfers were not made for legal necessity.
Findings of Court:
The court found that while the document did not confer an absolute estate or a gift upon the widow, it explicitly granted her a power of transfer equivalent to that of the owner. This specific grant of power overrides the general limitations imposed on a Hindu widow's estate.
Issues: Whether the document conferred an absolute estate, a limited widow's estate, or a specific absolute power of transfer, and whether the conferment of such an absolute power of transfer on a widow is valid under Hindu law.
Ratio Decidendi: The court ruled that an absolute owner of property has the right to dispose of it as he wishes. Conferring a fuller power of transfer on a widow who would otherwise inherit a limited estate is not repugnant to the principles of Hindu law. Consequently, the widow's alienations made under this granted power are binding on the reversioners.
Result: Consolidated appeals dismissed.
Legal Category Hierarchy
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family law
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hindu law
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succession
- widow's estate
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succession
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hindu law
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property law
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transfer of property
- alienation
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transfer of property
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wills and probate
- testamentary disposition
Judgement
Consolidated Appeals (No.39 of 1939) from a judgment and three decrees of the High Court (October 30, 1935), which set aside a decree of the Subordinate Judge of Cawnpore (January 2, 1932), and dismissed the plaintiffs suit as against all the present respondents.
The following facts are taken from the judgment of the Judicial Committee The appellants were the plaintiffs. The first appellant claimed the properties in suit as the nearest reversioner of one Pohkar Singh, deceased; and the second appellant was a transferee of half of the properties from the first appellant. Stated generally, the respondents all derived their title directly or indirectly from the transfers of the property made by Musammat Gambhiri, the wife of Pohkar Singh, who survived him and died in 1919. The following pedigree, set out in the plaint, explains the
relationship of the principal parties—
BADRI SINGH
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Pohkar Singh (died 1900) = Gambhiri Kunwar Koklat Singh
alias Parbati, widow (died 1919). |
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| Ga jra j Singh
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Ram Pian Man Kunwar Indramati Kunwar Bishun Singh
daughter (died childless before died childless. Plaintiff No. 1.
(died 1915 1895)
childless) married Gauri
married Shiam Shankar
Lal
defendant
No. 1.
The last male holder of the properties in question was Pohkar Singh, who died in 1900. He was separate from his brother Koklat Singh. He had three daughters, one of whom, Man Kunwar, had died before October 1, 1895, leaving a widower, Gauri Shankar. Of the other daughters, Ram Piari, who died in 1915, was married to Shiam Lal (first defendant), and Indramati was a minor, unmarried. On October 1, 1895, Pohkar Singh executed a document, purporting to be "a deed of gift," in favour of Gauri Shankar and others. The question for decision before the Board was, what rights were conferred by that document on his widow by Pohkar Singh. After the death of her husband Musammat Gambhiri executed the three following documents —(1) On May 22, 1903, a deed of gift of certain properties in favour of her daughter Musammat Ram Piari. The latter died childless in 1915, and she made a deed of gift in favour of her husband Shiam Lal. (2.) On July 28, 1914, a sale deed of a village and a shop in favour of the father of defendant No. 2. (3.) On September 26, 1917, a deed of gift in favour of Shiam Lal. There had been subsequent transfers by the transferees from Musammat Gambhiri Kunwar.
The suit out of which this appeal arose was instituted by the appellants to set aside the alienations of the suit properties made by Musammat Gambhiri and her transferees, on the ground that Musammat Gambhiri had no power to make the said alienations as she took only the limited estate of a Hindu widow in the properties left by her husband, and that the alienations were not made for legal necessity. The respondents pleaded that the deed of gift, above referred to, amounted also to a " will " in favour of Musammat Ghambhiri, by virtue of which she became the absolute owner of the properties in question-, and that she had therefore every right to alienate them, the appellants’ contention on those points being that the " deed " did not amount to a " will " as there were no words of bequest in it, and that it should be ignored altogether, as it conferred on Musammat Gambhiri nothing more than a widows estate in the properties, which as the widow of Pohkar she would ordinarily have. The deed of gift, con tinuous in its narration of facts, consisted in substance of two parts. By its first part Pohkar Singh gifted a sixteen annas share in mauza Malkanpur and a twelve annas share in mauza Deomai to Gauri Shankar, Ram Piari and Indramati in equal shares, reserving to himself the remaining four annas share in mauza Deomai. The relevant portions of the second part of the document ran as follows—
"The transferees, aforesaid, shall have, as proprietors, all powers, like myself to make all kinds of transfers and I have transferred the property, made gift of, with all so
