ISSUE:
What is ancestral property? Whether property inherited from a maternal grandfather would constitute grandson’s separate property?
RULE:
The word "ancestor" in its ordinary meaning includes an ascendant in the maternal, as well as the paternal, line; but the "ancestral" estate, in which, under the Hindu law, a son acquires jointly with his father an interest by birth, must be confined, as shown by the original text of the Mitakshara, to the property descending to the father from his male ancestor in the male line. The expression has sometimes been used in its ordinary sense, and that use has been the cause of misunderstanding.