A daughter who is in possession of property gifted to her by her widowed mother before the commencement of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, becomes a full owner of the gifted property by virtue of section 14 of the Act.

( 1 ) THE following question has been referred by Anctley, J. for answer to this Bench :-

"whether a gift made before the commencement of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956, by a widow at a time when she was a limited owner having only a life estate in favour of her daughter remains a gift only for the life time of the widow or does the daughter become a full owner of the gifted property by virtue of section 14 of the said Act when the daughter donee is in possession of the gifted property upon the date of the commencement of the It is unnecessary to state the facts of the present case because we are only concerned with the abstract question referred. The reference, it may be pointed out. was necessitated because of a decision of the learned Judicial Commissioner of Himachal Pradesh (C. B. Capoor, J. C. in Smt. Sumitra etc. v. Smt. Maharaju etc. , According to the learned Judicial Commissioner, it was not the intention of the Legislature, while enacting section 14 of the Hindu Succession Act No. 30 of 1956 (hereafter called the Act), that after its enforcement, a. Hindu female shall have absolute rights in any and every properly possessed by her and that the inlent of the Legislature was that if a Hindu female possessed any property, whether acquired before or after the commencement of the Act. as a limited owner, she shall have absolute rights therein after the enforcement of the Act. The right which the donee- daughters from the widow acquired under the gift was, according to the learned Judicial Commissioner, merely to remain in possession of the gifted property during the lifetime of the widow and they did not have any right of ownership therein, the rights being akin to those of a licensee. They could not, therefore, be characterised as limited owners of the property which could be capable of maturing into absolute ownership rights by virtue of section 14 of the Act. The learned Judicial Commissioner was also influenced by the fact that to give to a female donee the benefit of section 14 would create an anomaly inasmuch as a male donee under similar circumstances would remain a limited owner whereas a female donee would become an absolute owner. Such an intention, according to the Court, could not be imputed to the Legislature. We have to see whether this view of the learned Judicial Commissioner is correct.

( 2 ) WE may now read section 14 of the Act :-

"14. (1) Any property possessed by a female Hindu, whether acquired before or after the commencement of this Act, shall be held by her as full owner thereof and not as a limited owner.

EXPLANATION.-IN this sub-section, property includes both movable and immovable property acquired by a female Hindu by inheritance or devise, or at a partition, or in lieu of maintenance or arrears of maintenance, or by gift from any person, whether a relative or not, before, at or after her marriage, or by her own skill or exertion, or by purchase of by prescription, or in any other manner whatsoever, and also any such property held by her as stridhana immediately before the commencement of this Act.

(2) Nothing contained in sub-section (1) shall apply to any property acquired by way of gift or under a will or any other instrument or under a decree or order of a civil court or under an award where the terms of the gift, will or other instrument or the decree, order or award prescribe a restricted estate in such property. "

( 3 ) IT is obvious that the language used in this section, particularly in the Explanation, is of the widest amplitude. The anomaly which prevented the learned Judicial Commissioner from conferring on the female donee full rights of ownership, is inherent in section 14 itself and was noticed by a Bench of the Punjab High Court as far back as 1961 in Kaur Singh Gajjan Singh v. Jaggar Singh Kehur Singh. It was observed there that a Hindu male holder of ancestral immovable property governed by the Punjab customary law was still subject to restrictions on his pow