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Judgment
Kuppuswami Ayyar, J.—This is an appeal by the petitioner in O.P. No. 32 of 1943 on the file of the learned District Judge of Kistna against
his order directing the petitioner to furnish security before a succession certificate could be issued to her in respect of a debt owing to her husband
and inherited by her. The learned Judge observes:
The widow, however, is entitled only to a life estate. It may be that the certificate she claims relates to the Reserve Bank shares. It is doubtful
whether she can be given a certificate without security. The corpus itself may be disposed of by her as against the future claims of the reversioners.
Certificate will be granted on furnishing security for Rs. 1,000.
The learned Judge was wrong in observing that the widow is entitled only to a life estate. The estate can at the worst be described as a limited
estate--limited to this extent, namely, that she could not validly alienate except for necessary purposes. Such an estate cannot be called a life estate.
In Chinnaswami Chettiar v. Ponna Ammal (1915) 2 L.W. 352 a Bench of this Court observed that to accede to the contention that security in such
cases should be furnished by the widow would amount to holding that wherever a widow applies for a certificate, she is bound to give security; and
that that was not the law and no authority had been quoted in support of it. Recently a Bench of this Court in A.A.O. No. 752 of 1943, held that if
a Hindu widow applies for a succession certificate in respect of a sum of money due to her husband, she ought not to be called upon to give
security at all. In this particular case, the property in respect of which the succession certificate is sought, are Reserve Bank shares and such shares
could not be alienated secretly without the Bank knowing that they have been alienated. Therefore there is no need in a case like this for calling
upon security being furnished.
The order of the learned District Judge is therefore set aside and the certificate will issue to her without any security.