Hanumantha Gowd vs The Official Receiver

Wadsworth, J.—The appellant filed a petition u/s 4 of the Provincial Insolvency Act praying for a declaration that the Official Receiver in the

insolvency of Hanumantha Gowd was not entitled to the share which would in the absence of any impediment have passed to the insolvent on the

death of his brother Bhimana Gowd on the 21st March, 1944. The petitioner is a nephew of the insolvent who was adjudged in 1937. At the time

of the adjudication the family consisted of the insolvent, his brother Bhimana Gowd and the petitioner who is the son of a deceased brother. When

Bhimana Gowd died in 1944, the result, according to the present petitioner, would be that the share of the insolvent vested in the Official Receiver

would not be increased at all by survivorship as a consequence of his brother''s death and that the whole of the share of the deceased coparcener

would pass by survivorship to the non-insolvent coparcener, the petitioner. This contention has been negatived by the trial Court.

Section 28(4) of the Provincial Insolvency Act prescribes that all property which is "" acquired by or devolves on "" the insolvent after the date of

the order of adjudication and before his discharge shall forthwith vest in the Court or the Receiver. It cannot now be contended that the insolvency

of a coparcener effects a separation of that coparcener from the joint family of which he is a member. He continues to be a coparcener and the

decision of Venkataramana Rao, J., in A.Pr.L.M.L. Lakshmanan Chettiar Vs. K. Srinivasa Aiyangar and Others, which was pressed in the lower

Court must be deemed no longer good law in the light of the Bench decision in Noony Suryanarayanamurthi represented by next friend and

maternal grandfather Chode-China Pattabhiramayya Vs. Noony Veerraiu and Others, to which one of us was a party. In the latter case it was held

that, when the adjudication of a coparcener of a joint Hindu family was annulled, his share of the family property which was vested in the Official

Receiver would revert to the former insolvent as family property and not as self-acquired property. That decision postulates the position that, when

a man is adjudged an insolvent, his status in the joint family and his rights in the property of the joint family remain unchanged. It would therefore

seem to follow that if by a death in the coparcenary the share of the insolvent coparcener is increased the benefit of the increase will accrue to the

Official Receiver in whom that share is vested.

It has been contended that because any decrease in the insolvent''s share by the birth of a further member in the family would not take away

from the Official Receiver any part of the share of the insolvent as it stood on the date of the adjudication, it must logically follow that any increase

of the share of the insolvent would not pass to the Official Receiver. But it seems there is no such logical consequence. The reason why the Official

Receiver does not lose that which was vested in him is because the vesting amounts to an alienation which crystallizes the share of the insolvent to

which the alienee is entitled as on the date of the adjudication. The reason why the Official Receiver is entitled to any subsequent increase of the

insolvent''s share is not because the Official Receiver is a coparcener in Hindu Law, but because by Section 28(4) of the Provincial Insolvency Act

he is entitled to all property which is acquired by or devolves on the insolvent; that is to say, it is the insolvent who by Hindu Law becomes entitled

to the increase of his share and it is the statutory provision of the Provincial Insolvency Act, Section 28(4) which vests that increase in the Official

Receiver.

It has been argued by Mr. Ramanarasu for the appellant that the words "" is acquired by or devolves on "" are not wide enough to cover the

passage of property by survivorship. His argument is that the words "" acquired by"" necessarily connote getting by some effort and the words

devolves on "" necessarily connote the passage of property downwards, as by inheritance. It seems to us that this narrowing of the meaning of these

words so as to confine them to what was possibly their original connotation is not in accordance with English usage and it is not in accordance with

the view taken by the Federal Court in In the matter of the Hindu Women''s Rights to Property Act, (1941) 2 M.L.J. 12 : 4 F.L.J. 1 (F.C.). Both

the words in Section 28(4) are very wide words, obviously intended to cover all the ordinary ways in which the estate of the insolvent may be

increased from time to time during his insolvency. As, therefore, he continues to be a coparcener and as by the death of his brother the addition to

his share may be said to be acquired by him or to devolve upon him, it follows that this accretion vests in the Official Receiver. In this view we

dismiss the appeal with costs.