1. This second appeal raises a vexed question of considerable importance and the question relates to the construction of the principal provisions of the Hindu Womens Rights to Property Act, 1937, which introduced important and for-reaching changes in the law of succession and did so in statutory language which has brought many a lawyer and Judge to a state of perplexity. The enactment was obviously intended to give better rights to women by recognising their claim to fair and equable treatment in certain matters of succession but unfortunately the rules of devolution laid down in it are so penned that it his given rise to anomalies and a number of conundrums and an attempt to resolve any one difficulty his often caused misconceptions and equally great if not greater difficulties in other cases.

2. Jana, the first defendant who is the first appellant before me, is the widow of one Gadi. Her son, Santosh, the plaintiff-respondent, and Gadi were prior to 23rd May, 1946 members of a joint Hindu family and at a partition effected between them on that date 3.80 acres of land in field No. 639 was allotted to the plaintiff, and the remaining 7.30 acres of land fell to the snare of