Venkatarama Ayyar, J.-

This revision has been referred by Basheer Ahmed Sayeed, J., for the decision of a Bench as it raises a question of considerable importance under the Hindu Women’s Rights to Property Act (XVIII of 1937). The facts are simple. One Nagiah and his three sons Subba Rao, Sitaramayya and Sri Krishnaiah were members of a joint undivided Hindu family. On 22nd May, 1945, Sri Krishnaiah died leaving behind a widow Ramabanamma and a daughter Krishna Prasadam posthumously born. On 17th November, 1950, Ramabanamma instituted a suit under the provisions of the Hindu Women’s Rights to Property Act, hereinafter referred to as the Act, for partition of her husband’s one-fourth share in the joint family properties which were set out in Schedules B and C of the plaint and also for maintenance past and future at Rs.250 per annum. That was O.S.No.274 of 1950 on the file of the Court of the District Munsif, Tenali. Defendants 1 and 2 in the suit are the surviving brothers of the deceased Sri Krishnaiah and the third defendant Sitamma is the widow of Nagiah who had died before the suit. While the action was pending the plaintiff died and thereupon I.A.No.141 of 1951 was filed under Order 22, rule 3, Civil Procedure Code, for bringing on record her minor daughter Krishna Prasadam as the legal representative and for continuing the suit. The defendants resisted the application on the ground that the cause of action for partition under the Act and for maintenance was personal to the widow and that it did not survive to the daughter. The learned District Munsif held, following the opinion expressed by Mayne in his "Hindu Law and Usage" and certain observations occurring in the judgment of Viswanatha Sastri, J., in Radha Ammal v. Commissioner of Income-tax, Madras1, that on the death of the widow the estate devolved on the daughter as the heir of her father and accordingly ordered the application. It is the correctness of this view that is questioned by defendants 1 and 2 in this revision. The point for determination is whether on the death of the widow Ramabanamma, her husband’s share survives to his coparceners, defendants 1 and 2, as contended by the petitioners or whether it devolves on his own heirs as maintained by the first respondent Krishna Prasadam. No authority directly deciding this question has been cited before us, but counsel on both sides relied on observations made in the course of judgments in cases arising under the Act, as lending support to their respective contentions. The question, however, falls to be considered primarily , on the construction of the relevant provisions of the Act because the right claimed by the respondent is not one recognised by the Hindu common law, but is wholly a creature of the Act and must be found within the four corners thereof. The contention of the first respondent is based on sections 3(2) and 3(3) of the Act which runs as follows:

"Section 3(2). When a Hindu governed by any school of Hindu Law other than the Dayabhaga school or by customary law dies having at the time of his death an interest in a Hindu joint family property, his widow shall, subject to the provisions of sub-section (3) have in the property the same interest as he himself had.

Section 3(3). Any interest devolving on a Hindu widow under the provisions of this section shall be the limited interest known as a Hindu woman’s estate, provided however that she shall have the same right of claiming partition as a male owner."

The argument is that section 3(3) completely puts an end to the right of survivorship possessed by the coparceners under the law as it stood prior to the Act and has in consequence the effect of causing severance in status of the deceased coparcener; that the provision in section 3(3) that the widow is to take a woman’s estate means that after her death the estate will devolve on her husband’s heirs, the contention being that it is an incident of a woman’s estate that it should revert to the heirs of t

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