The court only needed to ascertain the right of a person to a succession certificate apart from the question of the existence or non-existence of the debts in respect of which the application was made.

1. This appeal arises out of an application made in the court below by the 1st respondent Lekshmi, for grant of a succession certificate enabling her to collect the debts and securities belonging to her husband T.N. Viswanathan, who had died issueless on 30.1.1950. These debts and securities were, for the most part, obtained by him in partition, between himself and his brothers, of the earnings of their deceased father T.S. Narayana Iyer, who was for some time the Chief Judge of the Cochin Chief Court. The respondents 2 to 5 who are the brothers were impleaded as counter-petitioners to the application. Subsequently, on motion made by one of them, their mother, the appellant was impleaded as additional counter-petitioner. Respondents 2 and 4, two of the brothers by separate objection petitions, though to similar effect, conceded the heirship of the petitioner to her husband and her right to be in possession of his estate as scheduled but contended that because she was a young widow incapable of managing the estate, injury to the immediate reversion in favour of themselves and other brothers was quite possible and in fact was seriously apprehended. So they prayed that restrictions should be imposed upon the petitioner while granting her, the succession certificate, say by joining their names along with hers therein or by taking security from her against waste or spoliation of the corpus. The appellant mother, raised her own objection that the debts and securities scheduled except to slight extent, did not belong exclusively to Viswanathan, but was owned by her also to the extent of 1/6. According to her, she was entitled under law to such share in parity with her sons in the assets of her husband which comprehended most of the debts and securities herein and she had not waived or relinquished that right to any extent so far. She had, in any event, the right too look to these assets for her maintenance. She claimed accordingly that no succession certificate should issue to the petitioner in respect of the assets concerned, at any rate without adequate security obtained. The court below repelled the objections raised by the brothers as well as the mother and directed the issue of a succession certificate, without any condition attached, in favour of the petitioner. The brothers have acquiesced in the grant but the mother has come up by the appeal herein.

2. Learned Counsel for the appellant urged before us that the court below had misled itself by failing to decide the substantive right of the appellant as set up by her. According to learned Counsel it was wrong to say that the practice of allotting a share in partition to the mother had become obsolete in South India, in any event, in this jurisdiction; and the appellant ought to have been held entitled to a share equal to that of a son, in the assets of the late T.S. Narayana Iyer and, therefore, in the debts and securities herein. Learned Counsel complained further that the court below had not properly appreciated the reasons for or the consequences of the non junction of the appellant in Ext. I partition deed of 23.5.1123 between the sons and urged that on the whole this was not a case where the succession certificate should have been granted unconditionally. The court below, it is true, felt itself not called upon to decide the question under Hindu

Law as to whether the widow has really a right to a share in South India or in Cochin and Travancore - but it clearly was not impressed that the partition deed Ext. I had been brought about without the consent or knowledge of the appellant or to her prejudice. There was, on the other hand, according to the court, every reason to believe that the appellant must have been a wiling party to the arrangements therein by way of division among her sons and also the provision for her residence and maintenance. But apart altogether from these considerations, the court below thought that the question raised by the appellant was on