JUDGMENT V.S. Deshpande, J.
(1) This is a plaintiff's appeal against the dismissal of her suit by btoh the learned lower Courts.
(2) The land in dispute originally belonged to Mansha Ram. On his death, it was inherited by his widow, who is the plaintiff-appellant. In 1917, she made a gift of it to her daughter Shrimati Reshmo orally. Shrimati Reshmo died on 22nd April, 1963. The question that arose was whether the suit land would then revert back to the plaintiff-appellant or would go to respondent No. 1, Gorkhia, who was the husband of Shrimati Reshmo and her heir according to the Hindu Law.
(3) In the plaint, it was pleaded that Gorkhia was the husband of Shrimati Reshmo by Reet. The validity of the marriage was nto impugned. The word 'reef simply means "custom". The pleading, therefore, was that the marriage of Shrimati Reshmo to Gorkhia was according to custom. The validity of the marriage nto having been impugned, it was assumed in the trial Court that Gorkhia was the husband of Shrimati Reshmo and the trial Court proceeded on that assumption. For the first time before the lower appellate Court, the appellant contended that Gorkhia was nto the husband of Shrimati Reshmo at all. The learned lower appellate Court, however, found that no such plea had been taken by the plaintiff-appellant in the trial Court. On the contrary, she admitted that Gorkhia was the husband of Shrimati Reshmo by 'reet' and this meant that he was her husband according to law.
(4) In this Court; the appellant attacked the judgment of the learned lower Courts mainly on two grounds, viz, (1) that Gorkhia was nto the husband, of Shrimati Reshmo and (2) even if he was her husband, under Section 15(2)(a) of the Hindu Succession Act the land in suit having been inherited by Shrimati Reshmo from her mtoher and.. therefore, on her death it reverted back to the mtoher, i.e. the plaintiff appellant.
(5) The first contention cannto be considered in as much as the plaintiff-appellant never disputed the validity of the marriage of. Shrimati Reshmo to Gorkhia and the trial proceeded on the ground that Gorkhia was the husband of Shrimati Reshmo.
(6) The second contention alone remains to be considered the learned counsel for the appellant argued that the word "inherited" used in Section 15(2)(a) of the Hindu Succession Act included acquisition by gift in as much as in a larger sense inheritance is anything which was acquired in whatever manner including by a gift inter vivos. This contention is, however, clearly contrary to the provisions of the Hindu Succession Act. In the immediately preceding Section 14, the word "inheritance" has been used in juxtaposition with the words "gift, devise, will, partition or toher instrument or decree or order etc." It is clear. therefore, that the legislature intended to distinguish inheritance from transfers by way of gift or will. The legislature could nto have, therefore, used the expression "inherited by" in the sense of acquisition by gift. The reason is obvious. It is only when the property was inherited by a daughter from her mtoher that the legislature thought it reasonable that on the daughter's death it should go back to the heirs of the father, that is to say the family from which it came to the daughter. The same rule could nto be applied when the property had come to the daughter by way of a gift. For, the interest acquired by the daughter by the gift and the disposal of the property so gifted after the death of the father entirely depended on the terms of the gift. For instance, if the gift were an absolute one, then, it would intend that the property should go to the heirs of the daughter after her death. It may also be that a gift deed would contain directions that the daughter was to get the property only for her life time and that it was to go to some staled person alter her death. In view of the freedom given to the donor in making the gift, the legislature apparently did nto intend that Section 15(2)(a) should apply to property gifted to a daughter by her mtoher. I find so. On the above findings, the appeal is dismissed with cost.