The main legal principle established in the judgment is that Act 2 of 1929 must be read as part of the Hindu law, and it recognizes no difference between the full blood and the half blood except in a competition inter se.

Pollock, J—The property in dispute belonged to one Dulli. On his death in 1898, it passed to his mother, Mt. Maina, who died in 1930. The plaintiffs, who are Dulli's half-sisters by the same father but a different mother, claimed the property as Dulli's heirs. The parties are admittedly governed by the Benares School of Mitakshara law. It is conceded that the Hindu Law of Inheritance (Amendment) Act 2 of 1929 applies, and this Act provides that a son's daughter, daughter's daughter, sister, and sister's son shall, in the order so specified, be entitled to rank in the order of succession next after a father's father and before a father's brother. The lower Appellate Court differing from the first Court, held that the term 'sister' does not include a half-sister, and therefore dismissed the plaintiffs' suit. A Full Bench of the Allahabad High Court in Ram Adhar v. Mt. Sudesra, 1933 AIR(All) 491 held that the term ''sister'' in Act 2 of 1929 does not include a half-sister, and this decision has been followed in Mt. Kabootra v. Ram Padarath,1935 AIR(Oudh) 332 and Mt. Sahodra v. Ram Babu, 1937 AIR(All) 655. We do not think it necessary to add anything further to what has been said in these two cases, and we think that if ''sister'' were given the meaning that it ordinarily has in the English language it probably would not include a half-sister, though it may be noted that S. 27, Indian Succession Act makes no distinction between the full blood and the half blood. Sir Hari Singh Gour, however, contended on behalf of the plaintiffs, who are the appellants in this Court, that Act 2 of 1929 must be read as part of the Hindu law and that as a general rule Hindu law recognizes no difference between the full blood and the half blood except in a competition inter se: see Guranditta v. Mt. Jiwani, 1937 AIR(Lah) 11 This aspect of the case was hardly considered in any of the above decisions.

2. Before Act 2 of 1929, the sister was recognized as a gotraja sapinda in Bombay entitled to succeed after the paternal grandmother. In Madras she was recognized as a bandhu entitled to succeed, but only after all male bandhus. The right of a sister to succeed in Bombay was based partly on the Mitakshara and partly on the Mayukha. The right of a brother to succeed under the Mitakshara is laid down in the following placita of S. 4 of Ch. 2 in that work. In Colebrooke's translations the placita run as follows:

1 On failure of the father, brethren share the estate. Accordingly Mann says, 'Of him, who leaves no son, the father shall take the inheritance or the brothers.'

(5) Among brothers, such as are of the whole blood take the inheritance in the first instance under the text before cited: 'To the nearest sapinda, the inheritance next belongs.' Since those of the half blood are remote through the difference of the mothers.

(6) If there be no uterine (or whole) brothers, those by different mothers inherit the estate.

3. There is an annotation by the learned author on the word ''brethren'' in placitum 1 as follows:

The commentators, Nanda Pandits and Balam Bhatta, consider this as intending 'brothers and sisters 'in the same manner in which 'parents' have been explained 'mother and father.' They observe that the brother inherits first: and in his default, the sister. This opinion is controverted by Camalacara and by the author of the Vyavaharamayukha.

4. The interpretation of the word ''brethren'' in the placitum as including sisters was accepted in Bombay but nowhere else.

5. There is also placitum 5 in S. 5 of Ch. 2 which runs as follows:

On failure of the paternal grandfather's line, the paternal great-grandmother, the great-grandfather, his sons and their issue, inherit. In this manner must be understood the succession of kindred belonging to the same general family and connected by funeral oblations; and there is an annotation to this effect: Nanda Pandits, preserving the common reading says, 'Kinsman (bandhu) are sapindas; and these may belong to the sa