vyAvAstha-DARPANA 95 A Hindu widow succeeds to her husband's property, on certain prohibitory and restrictive . conditions. -, She is prohibited from alienating. Her life interest in it is not transferable. In brief, she can be considered in no other light than as a holder in trust for certain uses. See Macnaghten's Principles of Hindu Law, page 19. If she be convicted of alienation, she is guilty of a breach of trust, and no further confidence can be placed in her. It is true, there is no specific remedy expressly provided in the Hindu law for such?breach of trust. In cases in which the law has not provided a remedy for an evil, it is the peculiar duty of courts of equity to supply the omission, in accordance with the spirit of that law. Now the proper remedy for a breach of trust is the removal of the trust fro్మ the party violating it. go The uses however on account of which the trust was given, should be preserved, if- possible :. and the reasons for which the widow was selected to administer the trust, should be respected. The natural course, then, for equity and justice to proceed upon, is to remove the widow from the management of the property, and to allow her such a maintenance from the proceeds of the property, as shall enable her to perform all the uses enjoined her, as widow, and as "much as shall uphold her respectability and rank in life, secure her from want of every kind, and leave her no pretence to disgrace her husband's family, or to pursue immoral courses. Such a procedure secures to the widow all that the law declares her right and gives her, and merely prevents her frona repeating her disregard of the injunctions of that law. . It, at the same time, secures to the reversionary heirs their right uninjured and unimpaired, without subjecting them to expensive and vexatious litigation, to invalidste sales ana obtain possession with perhaps years of mesne profits, which of itself is a sufficient answer to all arguments against . hearing a suit in the lifetime of the widow. It has been argued that the reversionary heirs are the last persons who should be selected to hold possession of the property, as they are the natural enemies of the widow; that their interests are directly opposed to hers, and that such a course would entail innumerable suits on the widow. They are, however, the parties most deeply interested in the due preservation of the property, and consequently most likely to preserve it. The courts are bound to care for their rights as well as for those of the widow, and as they will hold possession only so long as they pay out of the property the whole or such portion of the usufruct as the court may decree, and which may be required to be deposited at given times into court, the widow cannot be injured, or obliged to institute any suits.
- It has been held that the Supreme Court represents those that by the Hindu law are to control and superintend widows in such cases. This Court therefore is “ the proper authority to interfere for the good of all concerned. See Morley, Volume I. page 281.
Having disposed of the question of the admissibility of the action; we have now to decide upon the genuineness and authenticity .يof the anumatipatra put forwerd by Musst. Bolāki, as justifying the acts complained of by the plaintiffs. These acts being the sale of a garden in 1224 B. S., the grant of lands under hereditary mukarrari pattás at inadequate jamás on two different occasions, in 1229 and 1251, and lastly the entire and absolute transfer of the proprietary right in the estate. It is known that the family to which the parties belong came from the west, and were originally guided by the Mithilä law. Admitting the property may be disposed of under the law current in Bengal, when such a family have permanently fixed their residence there, it is but reasonable to believe that Doyālchänd would either have taken the precaution to have had a deed, involving a disposition of his property at variance with the Mithilâ rules, registered at the time of execution, or that the widows and the mother should have had this strong evidence of authenticity assured to them, when they began to aet upon the deed. . . - Upon the ‘grounds above detailed, we have no. hesitation in rejecting the anumaripatra. Viewing , the grant of the*makarrari? tenures, as acts not within the scope of a Hindu widow's authority, and regarding the late transfer of the whole of the estate by Musst. Bolāki's will to others, as an act ..so prejudicial to the heirs, and indeed so utterly subversive of their rights, as to go far beyond any t
