JUDGMENT

Ghose and Rampini, JJ. - This is an appeal against an order for the appointment of a receiver pending the result of a suit.

2. The suit was instituted by Rajah Padmanand Singh and others, sons of the late Bajah Lilanand Singh Bahadur, for recovery of possession of various properties, moveable and immoveable, which the defendant is in possession of, and which he claims by right of heirship to his son, Anantanand Jha, deceased. The plaintiffs' claim is founded mainly upon an alleged custom, both in the family of the plaintiffs and among Maithil and Suti Brahmins generally, that custom being that, when a provision is made for the support and adornment of a female member of the family, by grant of properties, she holds such properties for her life; that they devolve upon her death upon her lineal descendants; but that, on failure of lineal descendants, the properties revert to the family of the grantor. And it is stated that this custom obtains also in the case of a girl belonging to a family of the Maithil class of Brahmins being married into the Suti class, which is higher in rank than the Maithil class; and that in case of such marriage, the husband becomes degraded to the Bi