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First wife Sitaraimaiah Second wife Lakshmi Krishnamruti : (died on (Plaintiff) Perumallu (died in 1930) : (defendant) : 10.8.1938) Krishnavena- 

  :			     mma
Pulla Pao
died in 1939

Potti Subba Rao who died in the year 1919 was survived by three sons Sitaramaiah, Lakshmi Perumallu and Krishnamurti. Sitaramaiah was married twice. From the first wife he had a son named Pulla Rao. After the death of the first wife he married Krishnavenamma, the plaintiff in the suit. Sitaramaiah died on August 10, 1938. No issue was born to Krishnavenamma who was only 14 years of age at the time of Sitaramaiah's death. Pulla Rao died in the year 1939 at the age of 11 years. Krishnamurti died in the year 1930 i.e., before Sitaramaiah, without leaving any issue or a widow. The plaintiff continued to stay in the same house as the defendant till the beginning of July, 1950. Then she suddenly left the house and instituted the suit in question on the 6th of that month. According to her Sitaramaiah and his two brothers, defendant and Krishnamurti, acquired large movable and immovable property at Vijayawada, described in the schedule to the plaint, with the aid of their ancestral business. She claimed half Share in the entire property set out in the schedules, by virtue of the provisions of the Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act, 1937. She admitted that her husband had purported to execute a will before his death but contended that it was inoperative because he was a member of a Hindu joint family at the time of his death. The defendant contested the claim on various grounds. According to him there was no ancestral property and the suit properties were acquired by the brothers by their individual efforts and treated as self-acquisition. Further according to him the will executed by Sitaramaiah is valid and binding on the plaintiff and that the property allotted to the plaintiff under the will was being enjoyed by the plaintiff and further the properties allotted to Pulla Rao devolved upon him after Pulla Rao's death. Lastly, according to him even if the property were held to be joint family property of Sitaramaiah and the defendant the plaintiff would be entitled only to 1/4th share in them and not half share.

"The share which devolves on a widow of a deceased coparcener is not a fixed and determinate share but what she takes is the 'same interest as he himself had'. Therefore, until there is partition. she cannot predicate the particular fraction of her share for it is likely to increase or decrease by birth or death of other coparceners. Her share would include a share in accretions to the joint family property till partition is effected. Prior to the Act, a widow was entitled to a share in partition among her sons in her capacity as a mother (except in Madras). It has been held in a number of cases that after the Act the widow cannot claim a double share on partition between the sons, one in her capacity as a widow and another as a mother. Under the prior law, stridhan acquired by a female from her husband or father-in-law was taken into account when a share was allotted to her on partition amongst the sons. The share she gets under section 3 (2) is not affected by any rule of Hindu law to the contrary and it has been held in a Nagpur case that such stridhan received by her would not be deducted from her share on partition."

Survivorship having been ruled out the only other mode by which she will be clothed with the rights of her husband in the property, though to a limited extent, would be by succession or inheritance if she claims under the Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act." It seems to us that the learned Judges were not quite correct in saying that the property of one person can, on his death, devolve on another only by survivorship or by inheritance and in no other way. For, it is competent for the legislature to confer a right on a person to get the property of another on the latter's death in certain circumstances. This is precisely what has been done by the legislature in enacting s. 3, sub-s. (2) of the Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act. Adverting to the aforesaid decision it was observed by another division bench of the same High Court in Gurdayal v. Sarju(1):

"Reliance-was, however, placed for the defendants on Jadaobai v. Puranmal (2 ) where a Division Bench of this Court held that the interest of the husband devolves on the widow by inheritance and not by survivorship. We have no quarrel with that. It does not matter for the purposes of this case how the interest which the Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act gives Sarjubai devolved on her. The question is of what does that interest consist. Even if it devolves on her by inheritance the interest is, according to the Act, 'the same interest as the husband had', and 'the same right of claiming a partition as a male owner.' Whether this right devolved on Sarjubai by way of inheritance, or by succession, or whether because of the Act, as (1) A.T.R. [1952] Nag. 43.