Pious Purpose - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition pious-purpose

Definition :

Pious purpose, a Hindu father or any other manag-ing member has power to make a gift within reasonable limits of ancestral immovable property for pious purposes but a gift by the father-in-law to the daughter-in-law at the time of marriage cannot by any stretch of reasoning be called a pious pur-poses, Ammathayee v. Kumaresan, AIR 1967 SC 589 (578).

Means a gift for charitable and religious purposes. But the court has extended the meaning of 'pious purposes' to cases where a Hindu father makes a gift within reasonable limits of immovable ancestral property to his daughter in fulfilment of an antenuptial promise made on the occasion of the settlement of the terms of her marriage, and the same can also be done by the mother in case the father is dead. The scope of pious purpose does not extend to a gift by a husband to his wife of immovable ancestral property. Even the father-in-law would not be competent to make a gift at the time of the marriage of his daughter-in-law in so far as immovable ancestral property is concerned. A gift by the father-in-law to the daughter-in-law at the time of marriage cannot, by any stretch of reasoning be called a pious purpose, whatever may be the position of a gift by the father or his representative to a daughter at the time of marriage, Perrumalakkal v. Balakrishan, (1967) 1 SCWR 235: AIR 1967 SC 569.

Pious purposes, is wide enough, under certain circumstances, to take in charitable purposes, though the scope of the latter purposes has nowhere been precisely drawn. But a gift to a stranger of joint family property by the manager of family for love and affection is void, Guramma Bharatar Chanbasappa Deshmukh v. Mallappa Chanbasappa, AIR 1964 SC 510.