GOVINDA PILLAI Vs. MEENATCHI ACHI AND GANAPATTI PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The first question argued is whether the crops growing on one veli of land which, under the terms of the will, the second defendant, one of the two widows of the testator, is to enjoy for her maintenance, are liable to be attached in execution of the plaintiff s decree. The Subordinate Judge is of opinion that the crops in question are precluded from attachment by virtue of the provisions of Section 60, Civil Procedure Code, which by Clause (n) exempts a right to future maintenance for seizure in execution of a decree. We shall assume for the purposes of this argument that the clause would apply whether the right to maintenance is derived under the general Hindu or Mahomedan law or under instruments in the nature of deed or will. But it seems to us that the Subordinate Judge is quite wrong in his view that what is attached in this case can be said to be a right to future maintenance. It may be well that the second defendant is given the land to be enjoyed by her during life in lieu of the maintenance to which she would be entitled as a Hindu widow, but what she acquires under her grant is not a right to maintenance but to certain property or rather the usufruct of that property. The produce of the land as it accrued becomes at once her property and the learned vakil for the respondents rightly concedes that the second defendant might dispose of it in any way she chose. That being so, it cannot be treated as standing on the same footing as a right to maintenance. The crops are her property and as such must be available to answer her debts. What is interdicted by the legislature is attachment of a mere right to future maintenance and not of a debtor s property or any interest in property though such property or interest might have been granted to him or her for maintenance. The Subordinate Judge relies upon the case of Munisawtni Naidu v. Ammani Ammal (1904) 15 M.L.J. 7 which follows a decision of the Bombay High Court, Diwali v. Appaji Ganesh (1886) I.L.R. 10 B. 342., in support of his view. No doubt there are words in the judgments in the two cases which might be taken to lend some countenance to the proposition accepted by the Subordinate Judge, but it seems to us that both the decisions really proceed upon the particular provision s of the instruments with which the learned Judges were concerned.

(2.) However that may be, we have no hesitation in holding that Clause (n) of Section 60 has no application to the present case. [Their Lordships then proceeded to deal with another question in the case not pertinent to this report.]

(3.) The result is that the Appeal No. 150 will be allowed with costs and Appeal 151 will be dismissed with costs.