JUDGMENT

Mukerji, J. - This appeal arises out of a suit for dower instituted by the plaintiff against the defendant. It is common ground that the plaintiff's dower was fixed at Rs. 35,000 at the date of the marriage which took place on 21st March 1920. The plaintiff's case was that the prompt portion of her dower should be treated as one-half of the total dower and this should be decreed to her with arrears of interest. She said that she had demanded payment at the end of 1924 and in the middle of January 1925. She accordingly claimed a sum of rupees 1,930 as arrears of interest.

2. The defence was that no particular portion of the dower had been declared to be prompt at the time of the marriage, and that the plaintiff was not entitled to any interest.

3. The lower Court held that it was in the discretion of the Court having regard to all the circumstances of the case to say what proportion of the entire dower should be allowed as the prompt dower. The learned Judge refused any interest and decreed the claim for Rs. 11,000 and directed that it should be paid at the rate of Rs. 300 a month.

4. The plaintiff contends in appeal that her entire claim should have been decreed and that she should have been allowed the interest claimed by her.

5. The same authorities have cited before us on both sides as laying down the rule by which Courts are to be guided in finding out what proportion of the entire dower should be treated as the prompt dower in the absence of any definite contract on the point. These cases are Eidan v. Mazhar Husain [1878] 1 All. 483: Taufikunnissa v. Ghulam Kambar [1878] 1 All. 503 Umda Begam v. Muhammadi Begam [1911] 33 All. 291 and Muhammad Subhan Ullah v. Saghirunnissa Bibi [1919] 41 All. 562. The first-mentioned case was overruled by a later Full Bench case, but the point on which this decision was overruled was a different one.

6. Those authorities lay down that the Court should fix the proportion to be treated as the prompt dower having regard to the status of the family, the amount of the dower and custom, if any prevailing in the plaintiff's family.

7. As to the evidence we have got the statement of the plaintiff's eldest sister, the husbands of two of her sisters and the statement of her brother to the effect that in the marriage of all the four sisters one-half of the total dower was declared to be prompt. The eldest of the four daughters, Musharraf Jahan Begam stated that she demanded one-half of the dower from her husband as prompt dower, but the husband who was a well to-do man paid her the entire amount of Rs. 35,000.

8. The husbands of the two other sisters swore against their own interest when they stated that the prompt dower of their wives was one-half of the total amount of Rs. 35,000. The plaintiff's brother also stated that although there was no clear contract to that effect, it had bean made clear that one-half of the total dower was to be the prompt dower. The learned Subordinate Judge has disbelieved all this evidence on the ground that the Qazi's register does not show that one-half was fixed as the prompt dower. This may be true, but we have no reason to say that all these respectable witnesses chose to tell untruths for the sake of their sister who was bound to recover, in any case, a substantial proportion from the defendant as her prompt dower.

9. It is conceded that the plaintiff comes from a respectable family. The circumstances which have led to this unpleasant suit are rather painful. We have got it from the defendant's own letter, printed at p. 17 that unpleasantness between the husband and wife arose because the husband wanted to take a second wife and the plaintiff would not agree to that. The defendant wrote to a third party:

Unless she (the wife) comes to have the same ideas as I have on the point (the husband marrying a second time) and willingly permits me to marry another wife that unpleasantness cannot be removed.

10. It is not the case that the husband and wife could not live toget