Angurbala Mullick vs Debabrata Mullick on 3 May, 1951
22. Reference may now be made to the decision Federal Court in Umayal Achi v. Lakshmi Achi [[1945] F.C.R. 1], upon which the learned appellate Judges of the High Court practically based their decision. The facts of that case stripped of unnecessary details are that one Arunachalam Chettiar who was a resident of Madras and owned considerable properties, moveable and immoveable, both within the outside British India, died leaving behind him two widows and the widow of a predeceased son. The deceased had left a will but the legacies given by the same exhausted only a small portion of his estate so that with regard to the rest which was of considerable value he died intestate. The deceased was in possession of several trust properties in regard to which there were certain religious and charitable trusts and the direction in the will was that the management of these trusts should devolve upon his heirs. The son's widow instituted a suit in the court of the Subordinate Judge at Devakottai for administration of the estate and for partition and separate possession of a half share of the same, basing her claim upon the Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act. The suit was resisted by the two widows as well as by the executors appointed under the will of the deceased and it was pleaded, inter alia, that the Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act was ultra vires the legislature and that in any event it was not applicable as the propositus did not die intestate. The trial court held first that the Act was not ultra vires and was operative on all properties with the exception of agricultural lands and this finding was affirmed by the High Court on appeal and also on further appeal to the Federal Court by the majority of the Judges of that Court. The second finding of the trial Judge was that the deceased died intestate with regard to a considerable amount of property and consequently the plaintiff was entitled to a half share thereof. The High Court affirmed this finding with this variation that her claim to moveable situated outside British India was not allowed but the Federal Court reversed the decision of the High Court on this point and restored that of the trial Judge. The other point and that is the point with which we are concerned in the present case, related to the devolution of the trust estates which were held by the testator. Both the courts below concurred in holding that these trusts should go to the heirs of the deceased under the ordinary Hindu law and that the provisions of the Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act were not attracted to the trusts. This decision was upheld by the majority of the Judges in the Federal Court and that point was actually dealt with by Varadachariar J. in his judgment. The view expressed by the learned Judge is that the Hindu Women's Rights Property Act was intended to apply only to properties beneficially owned by the propositus and it was not applicable to rights in the nature of trusteeship. It seems to us that, property construed, this decision does not stand in the way of the appellant. In the first place, we do not know at all what he nature of these trusts was. The learned Judge observed himself in his judgment that there was little or no evidence as to the terms of the foundations in respect of any of the trusts "managed" by the deceased. This observation, taken along with the terms of the documents referred to in the judgment, would go to show that the deceased was a mere manager of the trusts and in respect of some of them at least he was the manager jointly with other persons. In the High Court, Sir Lionel Leach C.J. expressly held that in no sense could the trust properties be regarded as the separate property of the testator and consequently Act XVIII of 1937 could not apply to such a case. Varadachariar J. observed with reference to the documents relied upon by the learned counsel for the appellant that they only provided for "management by his heirs." At any rate, we have no materials to hold that in regard to the trusts that formed the subject-matter of that suit the trustees had any beneficial or personal interest in the trust properties. The indications, on the other hand, are clearly in the opposite direction. In these circumstances, no question arises in the present case of controverting the proposition of law that Varadachariar J. purported to lay down, namely, that the Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act could not govern succession to property in respect to which the propositus had no beneficial enjoyment. It is not possible, however, to enunciate on the basis of this decision, a broad rule of law that succession to shebaitship, in which an element of beneficial or personal interest is normally involved would not be governed by the provisions of the Act. There are indeed one or two observations of the learned Judge in his judgment, not very definitely expressed, from which it is not impossible to draw an inference in favour of the respondent, but we think that they should be construed in the light of the facts and the actual decision in the case. The observation that Hindu law regards trusteeship as property for certain purposes is of a most general character and it has to be noted that not only the word "shebaitship" has not been used by the learned Judge but he does not even confine his remarks even to religious trusts. Moreover, trusteeship is not certainly equivalent to shebaitship. On the other hand, the reference made by the learned Judge to the limited objective of the Act affords an indication that he had in mind a trust of such a character where the trustee had no personal interest in the trust property. The object of the Act, as stated above, is to give better rights to women in respect of property. If a trusteeship, even if it is regarded as property, carries with it no emoluments or any beneficial interest for the trustee and consists of nothing else But a bundle of obligations and duties, it might possibly be said that the giving of share in such rights to a Hindu widow would not in any wan improve her position. But the position would be obviously different if there is a beneficial interest of a substantial kind inseparably connected with the duties of a particular office. They again, the learned Judge possibly used the expression "private property" in a somewhat loose sense as meaning personal property in respect to which the proprietor has a beneficial interest of his own. The reference to section 3(3) of the Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act is, as we have indicated already, not much helpful for the purpose of construing the Act. After all, we must take the decision as it stands and it is not right to call into aid a particular reason assigned by the learned Judge, for the purpose of carrying the decision beyond what it actually purports to lay down.