The main legal point established in the judgment is that the proper person to institute a suit under the Married Womens Property Act and the applicability of the Act to a specific insurance policy were key considerations in reaching the decision.

Madhavan Nair, J.

1. The plaintiff is the appellant. The question for determination in this appeal is whether the suit out of which this appeal arises was properly instituted by the plaintiff.

2. The plaintiff is a widow. In 1906 her husband insured his life for the benefit of his wife for a sum of Rs. 2,000 with the New York Life Insurance Company whose office was situate in Calcutta. The business of the New York Life Insurance Company in India has since been taken over by the defendants, the Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada. The plaintiffs husband obtained a loan of Rs. 600 from the defendants and in 1926 he surrendered his policy receiving a sum of Rs. 700 and odd exercising an option reserved in his favour in the policy. In 1929 the plaintiffs husband died. She now claims to recover the money under the Indian Married Womens Property Act (Act III of 1874) on the ground that under Section 6 of the Act a trust has been created in her favour. In the present suit she asks for a declaration that a trust was created by her deceased husband and that she is the beneficiary thereunder and that the Official Trustee of Madras or such other fit and proper person be appointed to execute the trust and that a direction be given, to him to pay her the sum of Rs. 3,210.

3. After the death of her husband the plaintiff approached the defendants for the recovery of the amount alleged to be due to her under the insurance policy effected by her husband. She was referred by them to the Official Trustee of Bengal. Having regard to the decisions of the Calcutta High Court the view of which I may say is different to the view of our own Court he felt a doubt whether since the policy was effected in the year 1906, the Married Womens Property Act would apply and wrote to her saying that he was prepared to proceed with the matter of recovering the money from the company only if he was supplied with funds by her. She then applied to the Official Trustee of Madras. He also gave her a similar reply. Being thus defeated in her endeavours to get the money under the policy, she sued the defendant company as a pauper. Various issues were settled in the case. The learned Chief Justice dismissed the suit on the ground that assuming that she has a cause of action, which was not decided, she was not the proper person to institute the suit.

4. In appeal it is argued before us that that decision is wrong and that in the circumstances of the case she is the proper person to institute the suit. The contention of the plaintiff is that a trust has been created in her favour by force of Section 6 of the Married Womens Property Act. The second paragraph of that section says:

When the sum secured by the policy becomes payable, it shall, unless special trustees are duly appointed to receive and hold the same, be paid to the Official Trustee of the Presidency in which the office at which the insurance was effected is situate, and shall be received and held by him upon the trusts expressed in the policy, or such of them as are then existing.

5. This section lays down the machinery for recovering, if a trust is created in favour of the wife, the money covered by the trust, and having regard to the words of the section it seems that the Official Trustee of the Presidency in which the office at which the insurance was effected is situate is the proper person to enforce the trust. In Balamba v. Krishnayya I.L.R. (1913) Mad. 483 : (1913) 25 M.L.J. 65 (F.B.) it was pointed out, though the question did not directly arise for decision in that case, by Sir Arnold White, C.J. that under Section 6 "the person entitled to enforce the rights of the beneficiary is the trustee, if a trustee has been appointed, and if no special trustee has been appointed the Official Trustee, to whom the money is payable". Having regard to the fact that in this case the contract was entered into by the plaintiffs husband with the New York Life Insurance Company at Calcutta, it would appear that the pr