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PETITIONER: SARASWATHI AMMAL
Vs.
RESPONDENT: JAGADAMBAL AND ANOTHER.
DATE OF JUDGMENT: 27/02/1953
BENCH: MAHAJAN, MEHR CHAND BENCH: MAHAJAN, MEHR CHAND DAS, SUDHI RANJAN
CITATION: 1953 AIR 201 1953 SCR 939 CITATOR INFO : RF 1962 SC1493 (10) F 1989 SC1359 (19)
ACT: Hindu law-Succession-Dancing girls of South India-Whether dasi daughter excludes married daughters-Custom-Nature of evidence necessary to prove custom--Hindu law--Rule preferring maidens to married daughters, whether applies to prostitute daughters.
HEADNOTE: The evidence on record did not establish the custom which had been pleaded, namely that among the community of dasis 940 (dancing girls) in South India a dasi daughter succeeded to her mother in preference to the married daughters; and in the absence of such custom, succession to a dasi must be governed by the rule of propinquity of Hindu law as a rule of justice, equity and good conscience and dasi daughters and married daughters would succeed to their mother’s property in equal shares. A rule that degraded relations are preferential heirs to undegraded ones cannot be evolved merely on logical grounds the existence of such a rule can only be justified on the basis of established custom. Custom cannot be extended by analogy. It must be establish- ed inductively, not deductively, and it cannot be...