VEERASWAMI, C.J. :- The subject matter of the second appeal is a maintenance decree against the defendant-appellant obtained by his minor illegitimate son. The appellant is a Mohamedan and the mother of the respondent is a Hindu. A sum of Rs. 100 per month has been decreed as his maintenance. That the respondent was the child of the appellant and that the mother of the child was a Hindu and there was no marriage between the two, has now to be taken as final in view of the findings of the courts below. The outstanding question on which the reference was made by Ismail J. to a Division Bench is whether the respondent in the circumstances could maintain the suit for maintenance against the appellant.

2. It is pressed upon us for the appellant that neither under the personal law of the relative parties, nor the provisions of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act of 1956, is the respondent entitled to maintenance against the appellant. The claim has to be sustained only with reference to the statutory provisions, if at all, for under the personal law of the appellant, there is no obligation on his part to maintain his illegitimate son by a Hindu concubine. By virtue of clause