Section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, does not apply to property that was not possessed by the Hindu female at the commencement of the Act.

1. This second appeal raises a question as to the true interpretation of Section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act 1956 (Act 30 of 1956). The following genealogy may usefully be referred to for understanding the nature of the dispute between the parties:

Sampat died on 10-2-1944, leaving him surviving his wife Thunki, his son Laxman and a sister Tulsa. Laxman died on 3-12-1944, and the property of Sampat then devolved upon Thunki. On 23-12-1944 Thunki executed a deed of gift whereby the property in dispute in this litigation was gifted to Tulsa. On 8-6-1945, Thunki contracted remarriage. The plaintiffs who are the uncle and paternal cousins of Sampat filed Civil Suit No. 120-A of 1949 in the Court of the First Civil Judge, Class II, Akola, against Tulsa and defendants Nos. 1, 2 and 3 who are transferees from her by deeds dated 2-3-1945 and 3-3-1945, for a decree for possession of the property gifted to her by Thunki. It was the plaintiffs case that the property in suit belonged to Laxman and on his death the property devolved upon Thunki who took a limited estate of a Hindu widow, and on Thunkis remarriage the suit property devolved upon the plaintiffs by inheritance, and the defendants. Tulsa and the alienees from her, could not resist their claim for possession. The trial Court dismissed, the plaintiffs suit. It was held that on the death of Sampat a half share in the property devolved upon Thunki and the remaining half upon Laxman, and that the property which Thunki inherited from Laxman was not divested by her remarriage. The learned Judge observed that Thunki did not cease to be the mother of Laxman, being related by blood, and the transfer of her life interest under the deed of gift held good during her lifetime, and that only after the death of Thunki the property would devolve upon the remaining heirs living at her death. He, therefore, held that it was not necessary to consider the question whether the plaintiffs were at the date of the suit the next reversioners to the estate of Laxman. Against that decree an appeal was preferred to the District Court at Akola. The learned Additional District Judge observed that the trial Judge had made out a new case for the defendants which was not pleaded by them. According to him, the plaintiffs had pleaded and the defendants had accepted that the suit property belonged exclusively to Laxman and on his death it has devolved upon Thunki, and the learned Judge made out a case that half the property devolved upon Thunki and the remaining half had devolved upon Laxman. He then held that by her remarriage Thunkis interest in the property inherited from Laxman was forfeited and the plaintiffs as the heirs and next reversioners to the estate of Laxman could claim the property from the alienees of Thunki, and on that view he passed a decree for possession of the property in suit in favour of the first plaintiff and dismissed the claim of plaintiffs Nos. 2 and 3 who were one degree more remote in relation to the first plaintiff. Against that decree, defendants Nos. 1, 3 and 4 have appealed to this Court.

2. It is contended by Mr. Mangalmurti, who appears on behalf of the appellants, that the learned Additional District Judge was in error in holding that the estate of Thunki was, on remarriage, forfeited. This question is concluded by a Full Bench decision of the Bombay High Court in Vithu v. Govinda, ILR 22 Bom 321 (A). In that case, it was held that under Section 2 of the Widows Remarriage Act (XV of 1856), a Hindu widow belonging to a caste in which remarriage had been always allowed, who had inherited property from her son, forfeited by remarriage her interest in such property and it devolved upon the next heir of the son. Mr. Mangalmurti contended that this decision was inconsistent with another Full Bench decision of the Bombay High Court in Basappa v. Ragava, ILR 29 Bom 91 (B). In that case, it was held that a remarried Hindu widow was entitled after remarriage to succeed to the