- (1.)This is a petition for Letters of Administration to the estate of Bai Champubai, daughter of one Keshav Vinayak Dhairyavan. The petitioner is the son of the sister of the father of the deceased Bai Champubai. Defendant No. 1 has filed a caveat. He is the son of the sister of the mother of Bai Champubai. Another caveat has been filed by defendant No. 2 who is a distant paternal relative of the deceased Bai Champubai, being the father's father's brother's son's son.
(2.)The first question for consideration is whether defendant No. 2 had any interest in the estate of Bai Champubai to entitle him to file the caveat. It is admitted by all parties concerned that in the absence of any interest in the estate of the deceased Bai Champubai defendant No. 2 would have no right to file this caveat in this suit.
(3.)It is also admitted by all parties before me that Bai Champubai died unmarried and her estate is her stridhan property which has to be administered now. The question then is, who are the heirs to the stridhan of this unmarried lady who died on August 3, 1937 Succession to a maiden's stridhan is dealt with in Mulla's Hindu Law, 8th edn., pp. 138 and 139. The heirs to such stridhan in order are (1) uterine brother; (2) mother; (3) father; and father's heirs in order of propinquity. It is admitted that the first three heirs mentioned above are not there, and therefore the stridhan property of Bai Champubai must descend to the heirs of her father in order of propinquity. The succession to the estate of Bai Champubai opens at her death on August 3, 1937, and the heirs of her father have to be found as on August 3, 1937. The heirs must be those persons who would be entitled to succeed to the estate of her father at the time when the succession opens in this case, viz. on the death of Bai Champubai.
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