The main legal point established in the judgment is that illegitimate children do not have rights of inheritance under Hindu Law, as recognized in the Mitakshara system.

Oldfield, J.

1. I have had the advantage of reading the judgment which my learned brother is about to deliver, and concur in it. I shall therefore merely state shortly the negative reasons, for which I think that the appellants legal argument must be rejected.

2. The case, it seems to me, must be decided on the broad ground that it is for the appellants to show that the illegitimate daughter of a woman, who lived in adultery, inherits her stridhanam, over which she had full power, in preference to her legitimate son : and that they have neither produced any direct precedent for such succession nor established any principle justifying it. As it is not alleged that direct precedent is available, I turn at once to the principles put forward.

3. Firstly, the appellants contend for the application of the law of succession applicable to dancing girls to the offspring of a prostitute, such as they allege the 1st appellants mother to have been. It is not necessary to decide whether she was one, as the appellants, contend; with reference to Annoyyar v. Chinnan (1907) I.L.R. 33 M. 366 and the fact that her immoral life began after her marriage, or was a permanent concubine as the facts suggest. For the argument must fail, even as put forward. On the assumption that she was a prostitute, there is no authority in Madras for applying to her estate the law, which has been recognised as applicable to dancing girls solely in virtue of the established custom of their caste. Vide Venku v. Mahalinga (1888) I.L.R. 11 M. 393 and Muthu kannu v. Paramasami (1889) I.L.R. 12 M. 214. And I observe here, as in connection with the appellants other contentions, that there is no reason for a liberal construction, the effect of which would be to disappoint expectations founded on legitimacy. It was then contended that references to daughters in the Mitakshara should be read as including all daughters, both legitimate and illegitimate, and that all alike should be preferred to the legitimate son, as heirs to their mother. But, firstly, that is not the primary sense of those references and is unauthorised by the rules of interpretation recognised by both English and Hindu Law. Vide Bhimacharya v. Ramacharya (1889) I.L.R. 12 M. 214. And next it has not been shown how such a substitution can be carried out or logically limited. Should it, for instance, be extended to the law relating to the daughters right to inherit from the father in spite of the absence of any special provision in her favor,. such as is available in the case of illegitimate sons ?

4. Next, there is the argument based on the alleged severance of the 1st appellants mother from her legitimate family owing to her unchastity and consequent degradation. VII Sud. Diw. Ad. 273 It is based first; on an opinion of the Pandits in Tara Munne Dosse v. Motqe Burnanee and Anr. VII Sud. Diw. Ad. 273, that the heirs of an unchaste and, outcaste woman are her daughters, born (as the report in the next case cited shews) in prostitution, who lived with her as prostitutes; not the sons of her daughter who had married, and lived respectably. The principle of severance is statedly relied on and no doubt justified the decision against the legitimate family, but it may, be pointed out that it involved nothing affirmative in favour of the prostitute daughters, defendants and that it was not necessary that it should do so, when the disqualification of. their opponents was sufficient for the decision of the case. Mayna Bai v. Uttaram (1864) 2 M.H.C.R. 196 dealt with competition between illegitimate children only, but contains an obiter dictum that in Madras it has never been doubted that the children of the prostitutes succeed to the property of their mother." The law, however, as it now stands in this Presidency must be taken to have been stated finally in the much more recent case of Subbaya Pillai v. Ramasami Pillai (1899) I.L.R. 23 M 171. It no doubt does not appear that there was competition there between legi