History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c63.t2.510.3

v4.c63.t2.510.3

the Hindu Inheritance (Removal of Disabilities) Act (XII of 1928) which sets aside the Mitākṣarā rules about exclusion from partition and inheritance except in the case of those that have been lunatics or idiots from birth; the Hindu Law of Inheritance Amendment Act (II of 1929, which enables the son's daughter, daughter's daughter, sister and sister's son to succeed under the Mitākṣarā in that order after the paternal grandfather and before a father's brother); the Hindu Gains of Learning Act (XXX of 1930); the Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act (XVIII of 1937, which enables the widow of a deceased member of a joint Hindu family to succeed to the interest of her husband in the joint family property and to succeed to her deceased husband's separate property for the same share as that of a son). The Privy Council claimed more than 70 years ago that 'the British Government by virtue of its sovereign power asserted, as the former rulers of the country had done, the right to visit endowments of this kind (viz. temples) and to prevent and redress abuses in their management' (*Rajah Muttu Ramalinga v. Perianayagum* 1 I. A. 209 at p. 232). Non-Hindu Judges of the Privy Council and the High Courts have been interpreting and laying down the Hindu Law for over a hundred years and on many points the law declared by them has thoroughly changed the law of the smṛtis and digests.