Re Estate of SUNDARA, Deceased.

RANKIRI, Petitioner.

UKKU, Administratrix, Respondent.

D. C, Kandy, 2,061 (Testamentary).

Kandyan Law-Acquired property of deceased intestate-Right thereto of illegitimate children-Rights of widow and sister of deceased.

    The Kandyan Law does not distinguish between illegitimate children born in adultery and merely natural children.
If there be no widow and legitimate children, the illegitimate children succeed to the whole of the acquired property of the father, movable and immovable.

    Mahatmaya v. Banda, 2 S. C. R. 142, approved.

    It is not all offspring of casual intercourse that are so entitled to succeed, but only those illegitimate children who have been publicly acknowledged by their father or born in his house under circumstances showing an act of open recognition of cohabitation with their mother.

    If there be a widow and a sister of the deceased intestate, besides illegitimate children, his ancestral lands devolve on the sister, and the widow has a life interest in the acquired lands.

    THIS was an application by one Rankiri, sister of the above-named Sundara, deceased, for a judicial settlement of the accounts of his estate. It raised the question whether

as sister and next of kin to the deceased she was entitled to  succeed to his acquired property in preference to his illegitimate children.

    It appeared that Sundara contracted a legal marriage with Ukku in 1867; that he lived with her at his house until his death, which took place on 5th June, 1898; that during the last seven years of his life he lived in concubinage with Rankiri, the petitioner, who bore him two children, Horatali and Vimali; that the lawfully married wife Ukku bore him three children, all of whom, however, predeceased their father; that the widow applied for letters of administration to her deceased husband's estate in June, 1898, naming in the petition as the heirs-at-law herself and her deceased husband's sister Rankiri, the present applicant; that the two illegitimate children of the deceased by their next friend, to wit, their mother Rankiri, sued the administratrix in D. C, Kandy, 13,907, complaining of her refusal to recognize their claim as heirs of the intestate, and prayed the Court to declare them heirs of the intestate, and entitled to the whole of his estate, and to order the administratrix to administer it on that footing; that the administratrix answered that the deceased's sister Rankiri was entitled to all the inherited property of the deceased, and that she herself was entitled to all the movables and the acquired landed property absolutely; and that the District Judge decreed that the illegitimate children were entitled to the acquired property of the deceased, subject to the widow's life interest therein, and the widow entitled to the movables.

    The sister of the deceased Rankiri, unknown to whom judgment had been given for the illegitimate children in D. C, Kandy, 13,907, now petitioned the Court in the testamentary suit claiming the right to succeed to the acquired property of the deceased, subject to the life interest of the widow, and prayed for a judicial settlement of the estate on that basis. On citation issued by the Court, the illegitimate children appeared by their mother Rankiri and resisted the claim of the applicant. Issues were framed on 1st March, 1902, one of which was the following:-Are these illegitimate children entitled to any share in the property of the intestate . when his widow and full-sister have survived him?

    The District Judge (Mr. G. A. Baumgartner) held that the original authorities in Kandyan Law relied on by the counsel for the illegitimate children-viz., Sawers, p. 7, cited by Marshall at p. 338 of his Judgments, Niti Nighanduwa, p. 14; P'erera's Armour, pp. 8 and 34-did not warrant the conclusion that illegitimate children were entitled to inherit their fath