Effects on rights under prior Hindu Law.

JUDGMENT :- The appellant a Hindu unmarried girl, sued her father for past maintenance from 20-12-1948 to 20-9-1958 (sic) and future maintenance from the date of the suit. Pending the suit she got employed on 1-6-1956, became a convert to Christianity and married a Christian husband on 7-7-1957. The Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956, came into force in the meantime on 21-12-1956. The trial Court granted a decree for past maintenance as prayed for but restricted future maintenance upto 23-1-1957 on the erroneous assumption that the said Act came into force on that date. The rate at which maintenance was decreed is not material for purposes of this second appeal.

The father having appealed against the decree, the lower appellate court allowed the appeal and dismissed the suit on, the view that by reason of the first plaintiffs conversion to Christianity she could no longer claim maintenance under the said Act and the Act itself had, to the extent to which it made provision, repealed Hindu law and usage relating to maintenance. Hence the second appeal by the first plaintiff.

2. Mr. K.V. Srinivasa Iyer the learned counsel for the appellant, contended that as the repeal of Hindu law and usage relating to maintenance took effect only from the date on which the Act came into force, there was nothing in the Act which pendente lite extinguished the first plaintiffs right to maintenance under Hindu law in force until the date of its repeal. On the other hand, Sri. N.S. Srinivasan, the learned counsel for the respondent, urged that the right to sue for maintenance being not a vested right, the law as it stood at the date of the decree-governed the rights of the parties. According to him the only law under which the first plaintiff could sustain her claim being the Act and not Hindu law-which it had repealed and as by reason of her conversion the Act no longer applied to her, the suit was rightly dismissed by the lower appellate court.

3. The relevant provisions of the Act are these :

"4. Save as otherwise expressly provided in this Act :

(a) any text, rule or interpretation of Hindu law or any custom or usage as part of that law in force immediately before the commencement of this Act shall cease to have effect with respect to any matter for which provision is made in this Act;

(b) any other law in force immediately before the commencement of this Act shall cease to apply to Hindus in, so far as it is inconsistent with any of the provisions contained in this Act..............

20(1). Subject to the provisions of this section, a Hindu is bound, during his or her life time, to maintain his or her legitimate or illegitimate children and his or her aged or infirm parents.

(2) A legitimate or illegitimate child may claim maintenance from his or her father or mother so long as the child is a minor.

(3) The obligation of a person to maintain his or her aged or infirm, parent or daughter who is unmarried extends in so far as the parent or the unmarried daughter as the case may be, is unable to maintain himself or herself out of his or her own earnings or other property.

Explanation : In this section "parent" includes a childless step-mother.

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24. No person shall be entitled to claim maintenance under this chapter if he or she has ceased to be a Hindu by conversion to another religion." The object of the Act is not merely to amend bull to codify the law relating to maintenance of Hindu dependents. S. 4 provides therefore, that Hindu law and usage to the extent to which the Act has made provision, for maintenance, shall cease to have effect and that all other laws inconsistent with its provisions shall also cease to have effect. The Act has thus an overriding effect and prevails over all other laws relating to Hindu Maintenance for which it has made provision.

On and from the date on which the Act came into force, it is the provisions of the Act and not Hindu law that regulates the liability of a Hindu to, provide main