The widow cannot be deprived of her right to maintenance despite her entitlement to a share in the joint family property under the Hindu Womens Right to Property Acts.

( 1 ) THE appellant herein is the widow of one Yeruku Naidu. She filed a suit in form a pauperis against her husbands undivided father and brothers for separate maintenance at the rate of Rs. 75. 00p. M. and for separate residence. She also claimed past maintenance at the same rate. A claim of Rs. 200. 00 was also made for utensils etc. The defendants resisted the suit contending mainly that the plaintiffs right was only to sue for partition and separate possession of her husbands 1/4 share in the joint family property under the provisions of the hindu Womens Right to Property Act, Act XVIII of 1937, and that the claim for maintenance, therefore, was unsustainable. They further pleaded that they proposed to the plaintiff that she should take awav her 1/4 share but her father stated that it would be difficult for her to go and settle down in the village for supervising cultivation and under the circumstances it was desirable that her maintenance claim was settled and that, therefore, in accordance with the desire of the father of the plaintiff some of the elders of the place were called in and the claim for maintenance was settled at Rs. 300. 00 and mid to the plaintiff. Alternatively it was contended that in any event the plaintiff was not entitled to maintenance at anything more than rs. 2/- P. M. having regard to the income realised from the property.

( 2 ) THE trial Court framed the necessary issues arising from the pleadings. The first issue raised was whether the suit was not maintainable by reason of the plaintiff having a right to claim 1/4 share in the joint family property under the Madras Act XXVI of 1947 passed after the Act No. XVIII of 1937. The trial court while giving its findings on the other issues, dismissed the suit holding the preliminary issue against the plaintiff. This judgment was confirmed by the learned District Judge. The plaintiff has now come up in appeal.

( 3 ) THE sole question for determination in this appeal is whether by reason of the right of the plaintiff to a share conferred on her under the Hindu Womens right to Property Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act), a Hindu widow would not be entitled to claim maintenance. The learned District Judge relying upon the observations in the case of Sarojini Devi v. Sri Krishna, AIR 1944 Mad 401 to the following effect"it may well be that if that Act (Hindu Womens Right to Property Act. 1937) conferred upon the widow a right of succession in respect of all her husbands property the right of maintenance allowed to her under the ordinary Hindu Law as compensation for her exclusion from inheritance would no longer be available; although nothing is said in the Act about the maintenance"held that the right of maintenance which was previously subsisting in the widow because of her exclusion from inheritance was no longer available.

( 4 ) BEFORE going into the question of law to be decided in this case it is just as well that we give an account of the events prior to the institution of the suit, the husband of the plaintiff thed on 24-1-1949 leaving him surviving his widow, the plaintiff, his father and his two brothers, respondents 1 to 3. Ever since the death of the appellants husband, no provision was made for her maintenance. She, therefore, caused a noice to be issued on 27-7-1950 calling upon the respondents to divide the moveable and immoveable property and settle her 1/4 share in the joint family property of her husband. A reply was sent by the advocate respondents to the aforesaid notice and therein it was stated that the appellant had no right to ask for partition, because she had represented to her father that she would remain in her fathers house and that she required no partition of the properties as it would he difficult to arrange for the cultivation of the lands. It is not necessary for us to go into the facts alleged in the written statement to say that the plainiff of her own accord gave up her right to partition and that she took in full

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