Father obliged to make marriage provisions for his daughter.

This second appeal raises a question relating to validity of a gift of a reasonable portion of the joint family property by a father in favour of his daughter, a few years before her marriage. The gift in question was made by the father of the plaintiff, one Mahalinga Nadar, under Exhibit P-1, dated 3rd February, 1921. Under that document the donor gave a life estate to the first defendant, his wife, and a vested remainder to the plaintiff in 3 acres and 17 cents of dry land and a house. The first defendant was married by the said Mahalinga Nadar, as his first wife, who was no other than the first defendant’s sister, was sickly. As the two wives of Mahalinga Nadar could not pull on together, the first defendant began to live separately with her daughter, the plaintiff herein, and in 1921 as stated above, Mahalinga made a gift of the property in the manner mentioned above. Sometime after the death of the donor, the first defendant executed a release deed in respect of the said property in favour of defendants 3 and 4, the sons of Mahalinga Nadar by the first wife under D-3, dated 15th November, 1929. This led the plaintiff to institute the suit for a declaration of her title to the suit property. The suit was resisted inter alia on the ground that it was not competent for the father to make a gift of any portion of joint family property in favour of the daughter.

While finding that the property gifted under Exhibit P-1 to the first defendant was a reasonable portion of the property, the Courts below held that it was beyond the powers of a father to gift away a portion of the joint family property to the daughter, though it would have been within the powers of a father to make such a gift on the occasion of the marriage of the daughter. In the result they dismissed the suit.

The aggrieved plaintiff has filed this second appeal challenging the correctness of the findings of the Courts below. On this question there does not seem to be any direct case. The case is therefore one of first impressions and I have to decide it in the light of observations contained in some of the decided cases.

It is now well settled that a father can make a marriage provision to his daughter out of joint family properties even long after the marriage. In Kudutamma v. Narasimhacharyulu1, a gift by a Hindu brother who was the managing member of the joint family of a reasonable portion of the joint family property to his sister who was married during the lifetime of their father but to whom no marriage provision was made at that time was held to be a valid one. In Sundararamayya v. Seethamma2, a gift of a reasonable portion of the joint family property by the father to the daughter nearly 40 years after the marriage was upheld by a Bench of this Court. Dealing with the validity of such a gift the learned Judges observed that there was a strong moral obligation on the father to make a gift of a portion of the joint family property at the time of the marriage either to the daughter or the son-in-law. It was also pointed out by the learned Judges

“that these gifts are intended as a provision tor the married couple and are made by the father probably in lieu of her share of the family property.”

In that case reliance was placed on a decision of the Calcutta High Court in Churman Sahu v. Gopi Sahu3, where that Court held that it was competent to a managing member to make a valid gift of immoveable property to a daughter born in the family on the occasion of her Gowna ceremony if it was only of a reasonable portion. In Sithamahalakshmamma v. Kotayya4, it was observed by Venkataramana Rao, J., that it was a continuing moral obligation on the part of the father to make a marriage provision to the daughter. In the last case also the gift was long after the marriage and the learned Judge upheld it on the ground that the moral obligation continued till it was discharged. What emerges from these decisions is that the obligation to make a marriage provision to th