Case: Amireddi Rajagopala Rao And Others Vs. Amireddi Sitharamamma And Others

1. The first respondent, Seetharamamma, is a Brahmin woman. She was married to one Ramakrishnaya. During the lifetime of her husband she became the concubine of one Lingayya, a Sudra by caste. From 1938 until the death of Lingayya in February, 1948, she was the permanently kept concubine of Lingayya, and lived with him. During this period and thereafter, she preserved sexual fidelity to Lingayya. The second, third and fourth respondents are the sons of the first respondent by Lingayya. The husband of the first respondent is still alive. The appellants are the brothers and brothers sons of Lingayya. Lingayya was separate in estate from his brothers and brothers sons. The parties are residents of Choragudi, Baptala, now in Andhra Pradesh and governed by the Mitakshara school of Hindu law. In the plaint, as originally filed, the respondents claimed that they were exclusively entitled to the estate left by Lingayya the subordinate Judge and the High Court found that as the first respondent was and continued to be a married woman while she lived with Lingayya and bore him children, she was not the lawfully wedded wife of Lingayya and the children born of the union were not his legitimate sons, nor were they Dasiputras and as such entitled to his properties. The suit was originally dismissed by the Subordinate Judge, but on appeal, the High Court gave the respondents leave to amend the plaint by making suitable averments for the award of maintenance, and remanded the suit for trial on the question of maintenance. At the subsequent trial on the amended plaint, the Subordinate Judge decreed the respondents claim for maintenance and consequential reliefs and awarded to them maintenance during their lifetime out of the estate of Lingayya. The Subordinate Judge passed his decree on September 20, 1954. During the pendency of the appeal preferred by the appellants before the High Court, the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act of 1956 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) came into force. The main controversies in the appeal before the High Court were (1) whether the provisions of the Act are retrospective; and (2) whether a married woman who left her husband and lived with another as his permanently kept mistress could be regarded as an Avaruddha Stree. In view of the importance of these questions, the appeal was referred to a Full Bench of the High Court. On the first question, the High Court held that the relevant provisions of the Act applied only to the estates of Hindus dying after the commencement of the Act, and that the right of the respondents to maintenance during their lifetime under the Hindu law in force at the time of the death of Lingayya was not affected by the Act. On the second question, the High Court held that the first respondent was an Avaruddha Stree of Lingayya, and was entitled to maintenance from his estate, though her husband was alive and the connection with Lingayya was adulterous. The High Court agreed with the Subordinate Judge with regard to the quantum of maintenance.

Reasoning: In Kameshwaramma v. Subramanyam, AIR 1959 Andh Pra 269, the plaintiffs husband had died in the year 1916, and the plaintiff had entered into a compromise in 1924 fixing her maintenance at Rs. 240 per year and providing that the rate of maintenance shall not be increased or reduced. The question arose whether, in spite of this agreement, the plaintiff could claim increased maintenance in view of S. 25 of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance. Act, 1956. It was held that, in spite of the aforesaid term of the compromise, she was entitled to claim increased maintenance under S. 25. This conclusion follows from the plain words of S. 25, under which the amount of maintenance, whether fixed by decree or agreement either before or after the commencement of the Act, may be altered subsequently. The decision was, therefore, plainly right. No doubt, there are broad observations in that case to the effect that the right to maintenance is a recurring right and the liability to maintenance after the Act came into force is imposed by S. 22, and there is no reason to exclude widows of persons who died before the Act from the operation of S. 22. Those observations were not necessary for the purpose of that case, because the widow in that case was clearly entitled to maintenance from the estate of her deceased husband dying in 1916 under the Hindu law, as it stood then, independently of Ss. 21 and 22 of the Act, and in spite of the compromise fixing the maintenance before the commencement of the Act, the widow could in view of S. 25 claim alteration of the amount of the maintenance. The decision cannot be regarded as an authority for the proposition that Ss. 21 and 22 of the Act affect rights already vested before the commencement of the Act. We, therefore, hold that the claim of the respondents to maintenance for their lives is not affected by the ActWe see no reason to interfere with the concurrent finding of the Courts below with regard to the quantum of maintenance.