History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c73.t1.411

v5.c73.t1.411

One thing to be remembered is that in determining the preferential right regard is to be had to the capacity of a person and the efficacy of the piṇḍas when offered. After a person takes the wealth of the deceased, there is no legal machinery to enforce his duty to offer piṇḍas¹¹³⁸. It was argued in *Nalinaksha v. Rajani Kanto* 35 C. W. N. 726 that, if an heir does not offer piṇḍas or refuses to offer them to his ancestor, he was not entitled under Hindu Law to succeed to him. This argument was repelled by the judges with the remark that there was no authority for such a proposition and that the right to inheritance is based under the Dāyabhāga not on offering piṇḍa but on the capacity to offer it (p. 729). Vide *Gooroo Gobinda Saha v. Anand Lal* 5 Beng. L. R. 15 (F. B.) and *Digamber v. Motilal* 9 Cal. 563 (F. B.) for the statement that the principle of spiritual benefit is the sole foundation of the theory of inheritance propounded in the Dāyabhāga. But in certain later cases such as *Akshayachandra v. Hari Das* 35 Cal. 721 it was rightly pointed out that spiritual benefit is not always the guiding principle under the Bengal school of law, that the principle of spiritual efficacy as the guiding principle fails in all classes of female relations such as the wife, the daughter and the mother whose rights are really based on special texts and that the reason for inheritance by a re-united coparcener was not spiritual benefit but was based on a *quasi* contract and affection.