Judgement

Appeal (No. 51 of 1922) from a decree of the High Court (August 14, 1919) affirming a decree of the Subordinate Judge of Ghazipur (December 23, 1915).

The suit was brought) in 1915 by the two first respondents, minors suing by their mother, for a declaration that a decree passed in 1912 against their father Sita Ram and themselves upon a mortgage for Rs. 11,000 executed by him on March 4, 1903, was not binding upon the plaintiffs. The plaint alleged that the mortgage had been executed by their father upon the joint family property without necessity so as to bind them, and that they had not been properly represented in the suit in which the decree had been made ex parte. Both when the mortgage was executed and the suit was brought Sita Ram and the plaintiffs formed a joint Hindu family governed by the Mitakshara. The defendants to the suit were the mortgagees, the appellant and the fourth respondent, and Sita Ram, the fifth respondent.

The mortgage was upon ancestral property of the joint family, and was expressed to be made in order to discharge mortgages upon the same property made in 1905 and 1907 by Sita Ram ; it was found by the High Court that the whole of the sum ad