The practice of allotting shares upon partition to females has long since become obsolete in Southern India and the wife or mother cannot claim any share in the joint family property.

( 1 ) ADUSUMALLI Punniah was adjusted insolvent in I. P. No. 36 of 1933 by the Sub-Court. Machilipatnam on 28-9-1934. the petitioner is the wife of A. Punniah. The Official Receiver was appointed as interim receiver. He sold the undivided one-third share of the insolvent. It was purchased by two persons. They separately filed two suits O. S No. 38 and 39 of 1956 for partition and possession of the one-third share of the insolvent in the properties which they purchased.

( 2 ) BOTH the suits were tried together and preliminary decrees were passed. Defendants 4 and 5 in the said suits filed appeals in the High Court, A. S. Nos. 317 and 318 of 1961.

( 3 ) EARLIER the appellants in the above said appeals had filed O. S. No. 45 of 1964 for setting aside the alienations of certain properties of the ground that these alienations were not supported by consideration and were not binding on them. The suit was dismissed by the trial court. A. S. No. 247 of 1968 was then preferred to the High Court by the said appellants. All the above three appeals were heard together by a Division Bench of this court consisting of Obul Reddi and Venkateswara Rao, JJ. The Bench gave the judgment in these appeals on 28-10-1970. In the course of the judgment, their Lordships made the following observations:--"in this connection it is also to be borne in mind that a wife cannot herself demand a partition. But if a partition does take place between her husband and his sons, she is entitled to receive a share equal to that of a son and to hold and enjoy that share separately even from her husband. Where at a partition between a father and his three sons, the wife was not allotted a share it was held that she was entitled to re-open the partition, there being no waiver merely by her not asking for a share, but that in the petition the value of the Ornaments taken by her must be taken into account. (See Mulla On Hindu Law, Para, 315 ). It is also to be borne in mind that the mother was not made party to O. S. Nos. 38 and 39 of 1956 and therefore the question of determining the shares of the plaintiffs and their broker Venkata Gopal Rao and the mother does not arise in these suits. As already pointed out, if any remedy is available to the contesting respondents against Venkata Gopala Rao, they will be at liberty to pursue those remedies. "

( 4 ) TAKING clue from the said observations, the petitioner--the wife of the insolvent Punniah filed I. A. No, 457 of 1971 in O. S. No. 38 of 1956. She also filed I. A. No. 458 of 1971 in O. S. 39 of 1956 to implead her as defendant with a view to re-open the preliminary decree passed in those suits and seek a partition of her share.

( 5 ) THESE petitions were resisted by the plaintiffs in the suits mainly on the ground that according to Hindu Law prevalent in South India, the wifes right to a share on a partition between her husband and her son has long since become obsolete. The petitioner, therefore, was not entitled to any share. It was also contended in the alternative that even if the wife is entitled to a share, since the suits for partition were filed by third party purchasers of the husbands share, the petitioner could not seek a share.

( 6 ) THE learned Subordinate Judge, Gudivada by his judgment dated 26-4-1972 held that the petitioner, according to Hindu Law prevalent in South India, is not entitled to a share on such partition. It was also held that in the third party suits for partition, the question of impleading the petitioner as a party cannot arise. Consequently he dismissed both the petitions.

( 7 ) THE petitioner aggrieved by the said order preferred these revision petitions. They first came for hearing before one of us, A. V. Krishna Rao, J. He was of the opinion that the view expressed by Obul Reddi and Venkateswara Rao, JJ. in A. S. Nos. 317 and 318 of 1961 and A. S. No. 247 of 1968, an observation from which is extracted above, requires reconsideration. The case therefore was referred to a