The Amount of Maintenance, and the Dependants

In one line

Nine classes of dependant may claim against the estate of a deceased Hindu from those who take it, and the court fixes the amount on five factors for a living person's obligation and seven for a claim against an estate.

Section 21: who the dependants are

For the purposes of Chapter III, "dependants" means the following relatives of the deceased:

(i) his or her father;

(ii) his or her mother;

(iii) his widow, so long as she does not remarry;

(iv) his or her son, or the son of a pre-deceased son, or the son of a pre-deceased son of a pre-deceased son, so long as he is a minor, and, in the case of a grandson, only so far as he is unable to obtain maintenance from his father's or mother's estate, and in the case of a great-grandson from the estate of his father or mother or father's father or father's mother;

(v) his or her unmarried daughter, or the unmarried daughter of a pre-deceased son, or of a pre-deceased son of a pre-deceased son, so long as she remains unmarried, with the same graduated proviso;

(vi) his widowed daughter, so far as she is unable to obtain maintenance from the estate of her husband, or from her son or daughter or their estates, or from her father-in-law or his father or the estate of either;

(vii) any widow of his son, or of a son of his pre-deceased son, so long as she does not remarry, so far as she is unable to obtain maintenance from her husband's estate, or from her son or daughter or their estates, or, for a grandson's widow, from her father-in-law's estate;

(viii) his or her minor illegitimate son, so long as he remains a minor; and

(ix) his or her illegitimate daughter, so long as she remains unmarried.

The pattern in the list

Three observations turn a list into an answer.

Almost every entry is conditional. The widow only until she remarries, the son only while a minor, the daughter only while unmarried, and every remoter relation only so far as he or she cannot get maintenance from somebody nearer. The Act is not distributing the estate; it is catching the people who would otherwise fall through.

Illegitimate children are included, in clauses (viii) and (ix), on the same terms as legitimate ones, which continues the policy of section 20.

The father and mother are unconditional in the list itself, though section 23(3) then governs how much they get.

Section 22: the obligation on the heirs

Sub-section (1). Subject to sub-section (2), the heirs of a deceased Hindu are bound to maintain the dependants of the deceased out of the estate inherited by them from the deceased.