vyAVASTHAZDARPANA. 79 In all cases the law must have a reasbmable construction to forward the object of it. It cannot, therefore, be necessary, to authorise sale of the infant's property, that the family should be in absolute and urgent want of the necessaries of life at the very moment ; or sufficient to take away the power, that they are subsisting at the time upon the charitable donations of their friends and relations, who may at any moment withdraw their help from them. Land is not to be sold at a moment's warning : but if the family have no certain resource for the future and no actual means of providing for themselves the decent necessaries of life according to their condition, and no regular competent allowance from the funily, but only mere casual charity, which was the state and condition of this family, this constitutes a reasonable necessity to warrant the sale of the property”. On these grounds we think that the purchase was well made, and that there should be judgment for the lessor of the plaintiff, who had been in possession under the purchase-deed for" nearly nineteen years before he was lately ousted by a judgment in ejectinent snapped against him. Judgment for the plaintiff. Bishwa Nath Datta versus Durgā Prasād De and Shib Chandra De 4th July, 1813. East's Notes, No. 34. I. Plaintiffs declare that they succeeded in getting a decree against Subhaddra's husband Jivan Krishna Case Babu, for lòupees 57,599-7-9, that after his demise, she, in lie of that debt, executed a bill of sale on bea: منامه نبيه • - - ميمر " àOS. 27 à Il _ the 17th Asha r 1219, and sold certain estates of her husband, which defendants, on the pro text of bena deeds alleged to have been executed by Jiban Krishna in their favor, withhold from plaintiffs. Plaintiffs pray therefore for possession and wasilat. 参见 In appeal, several pleas were urged for appellants, of which the third is, that the sale to them, on which plaintists claim, is illegal according to Hindu law : the widow, who sold to them, having no power to alienate property inherited from her husband. Fourth, the sale, with respect to the two properties in question, is illegal, because the scller was not in possession. Fifth, the decree, for the amount of which the estates were sold, was collusive, and consequently the sale, and therefore it is invalid. Sixth, the sale and gist of appellants were bona fide real transactions, and not fictitious, and therefore should be uplield. On the part of respondents it was argued that the sale having been made to pay her husband's debts, by the widow, was perfectiy legal. The parties are Hindus, and, according to the Sha'stra, a sale even without possession is valid. There was no collusion. The plaintiffs had obtained a decree against the widow's husband, which he appealed and died. The widow then withdrew the appeals and sold the estate to avoid heavier liabilities from continuing to contest the demand. And that the sale and gift of appellants have been clearly fictitious and fraudulent to evade demands, and therefore were properly, declared invalid by the principal suilder ameen. On the third plea, the followiug question was put to the pundit of the Court : ‘Have Hindut widows the power to alienate the whole of the landed property inherited from their husbands, for paymen of their husbands' debts, without the consent of the next heirs to the said property, relatives of the husband 2 To which the pundit answered : ‘A Hindu woman, who has inherited the property left by her husband, may alienate the whole of it to pay his debts, because, so inheriting her husband's property, shc is bound to pay his debts." The pandit refers for his authority to Na'nada Muxi, as suated in the digest of JAGANs Atil, and to be found in Colebrooke's translation, (pp. 315 and 316, volume I.) ‘If the assets of the husband have been received by the wife, she must pay the debts.' And again : ‘and so must a debt be paid by a childless widow, who has accepted the care of the assets, even though she have not accepted the burden of the "debts, for she is successor to the estate.’ ‘t 尊
- The widow in this case was in the position of a guardian to her infant sons. The ruse however is quoted here because the judgment describes circumstances under which a widow, whether as guardian of her son, or heir to her husband, is justifled in disposing of the property descended to her son or herself.
- --> † This however is not the trauslation of the text of NaíiAvA Mtsi lut vf JAGANNATII's comment thercon. Sec Coleb. Dig. vul. i. p. 315. 316.
