DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 347
love and affection is affected by this provision. In the first place Son ; widow; daughter: this I can understand very well. Then you find ‘son of a predeceased son’: Even there I will allow it. Then comes ‘ widow of a predeceased son’. Sir, I do not understand how under the law of natural love and affection she is preferred to a daughter, son or an uncle. I do not think that so far as the question of natural affection is concerned, the widow of a predeceased son, or son of a predeceased son of a predeceased son can be accepted. My opinion is that the Bill is based on a wrong stand-point if it provides for them. I can understand if this is only for providing for ladies, if they were not provided elsewhere. If they wanted not a widow, but the wife of a predeceased son or the wife of a son, I can understand it.
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : This is by statute. If my honourable friend will read the Women’s Property Act, 1937, he will understand why these people have been put in the category simultaneously.
Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava: The friend of Dr. Ambedkar knows it quite very well. But in that 1937 Act when that provision was made, the ‘daughter’ was not included.
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I have said so.
Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava: You want to add this to enable the daughter to succeed a father and succeed the father-in-law too. This is absolutely unfair. I do not see why you do not provide for this when you are making a new Code. You were making laws in which all claims should have been satisfactorily met. How should you have put in these provisions, because the Act of 1937 was there. I do not think this committee was justified in doing this. They ought to have given a full code in which every claim was satisfied. You cannot justify it otherwise. Therefore, you took protection under that Act. That is the position, Sir.
When I come to clause 2 of the original bill the ‘mother’ was considered as the better heir, because the ‘mother’ was a class by itself and the mother succeeded alone. Here I can understand natural love. Now the father has been placed along with the mother and they both come together. But if you proceed further what I maintain will be better understood. When you come to the second case, you find son’s daughter, daughter’s daughter. The son’s daughter has got a special place in Mitakshara law and according to Mitakshara, she is one of the favourite heirs. What happens now, Sir, is that in the original