The main legal point established in the judgment is the proper determination of maintenance in family law cases and the correct application of court-fee provisions under Order 33, Rules 10 and 11, Civil P.C.

Beasley, C.J.

1. This is an appeal from the Court of the Subordinate Judge at Nellore. The defendants in the suit are the appellants and there are also objections by the successful plaintiff in the suit, the respondent here. The plaintiff, whose deceased husband and defendant 1 were undivided brothers filed the suit claiming maintenance. Defendant 2 is the undivided minor son of defendant 1. The plaintiffs husband died on 12th June 1919 and the suit was filed on 21st December 1923 claiming current maintenance at Rs. 250 a month and arrears from 12th June 1919 to the date of the plaint. The total valuation of the claim was Rs. 16,500. The learned District Judge awarded the plaintiff Rs. 50 in cash per mensem and three putties of paddy per annum equivalent to Rs. 240 per annum in respect of current maintenance and arrears at the rate of Rs. 35 per mensem; and with regard to costs, he directed defendant 1 to pay the plaintiffs costs of the suit and also the whole of the courts-fee payable to Government by the, plaintiff who brought her suit in forma, pauper is

2. The members of defendant ls family consist of himself, his wife, a minor son two minor daughters, his mother and a widowed sister. The plaintiffs case was that the net income of the family amounted to about Rs. 20,000 a year; on the other hand defendant ls case was that the net income was only Rs. 6,000 a year and he offered to pay only Rs. 25 per mensem as current maintenance. The learned Subordinate Judge took the gross income of the family to be Rs. 24,000 from which he made deductions for kist and estimated the net income at about Rs. 15,000 although there does not seem to be anything on the record which would justify a reduction of the family income below Rs. 19,000 a year. He seems to have been generally satisfied with the evidence as to the family income given on behalf of the plaintiff. Though defendant,1, the managing member of the family, admitted that he had accounts he did not produce them. He must have known that on the question of maintenance it was all important that he should show to the Court not only what the expenditure of the family was but what its profits were and assist the Court in arriving at the proper figure of the income of the family. He chose not to disclose those books and the learned trial Judge has quite properly drawn all inferences adverse to him by reason of the non-production of these books. The inference to be drawn is that had he produced them, the figures therein as to the income of the family would have been more approximating to those given on the plaintiffs behalf than those given by the defendants. We see no reason for thinking that the estimate of the income of the family arrived at by the learned Subordinate Judge erred on the side of liberality to the plaintiff, and we are prepared to take it that the net income of the family was about Re. 15,000 a year. We have got to see whether he has on that net income awarded to the plaintiff the proper amount of maintenance. The net income of Rs. 15,000 means a monthly income to the family of Rs. 1,250. Infixing maintenance at the rate of Rs. 50 per mensem in cash and the equivalents of another Rs. 20 per mensem in paddy making a total of Rs. 70 per mensem, we think he has not been liberal to the plaintiff. We are not fixing maintenance in this case by taking any particular proportion of the net income but we are taking into consideration the fact that Rs. 1,250 per mensem is a very good income for a family of this size which after all is quite a small one consisting of some seven members only; and we think that the evidence shows that the plaintiff who is a young woman of about 18 years of age has been educated and is still in need of education and that her requirements certainly are more than those of a woman older than herself. The conclusion we have come to with regard to this is that the current maintenance should be fixed at Rs. 80 per mensem plus the three putties of paddy