Sir George Rankin:-

The suit out of which this appeal arises was brought in forma pauperis on 18th September 1922, by the three sons of one Kashinath against no fewer than 78 defendants. The plaint is a long and complicated document of 69 paragraphs and the general outline of its contents is that Kashinath, the father and karta of a Mitakshara family, had embarked upon a career of vice and extravagance, in the course of which he had parted with a number of the family properties and had lost other properties by sales in execution of decrees. The purpose of the plaint was to recover various properties from the persons to whom they had been thus alienated, upon the footing that the alienations were not made for family necessity and if made for Kashinath's antecedent debt, were not binding against his sons by reason that they were made for purposes which the Hindu law regards as immoral. In respect that all the transactions impugned were brought under the allegation as to Kashinath's bad character and habits, the various transactions raised what may be called a common question of fact, and in a very extended sense of the phrase it may be said, that they constituted a series of transactions, but their Lordships have no doubt that this plaint challenged a greater number of transactions and impleaded a greater number of defendants than was either necessary, reasonable or convenient: in so saying their Lordships have not forgotten that in some cases different defendants by virtue of different transactions have come to have competing claims in respect of the same property.

The appellants before their Lordships are defendants 28, 33 and 35, their names being Mahant Ramdhan Puri, Bipat Ram and Adjodhya Prasad respectively. The two last mentioned had joined in one written statement. The first had filed another written statement jointly with defendant 36. The properties in which these defendants, or some of them, were interested included some property as to which the Courts in India dismissed the plaintiffs' claim, and this appeal concerns two items of property only, each item being a share of a village called Rupau. Property No. 1 is a third share, that is a 5 annas 4 pies share in this village. Property No. 2 is a share represented by a very small fraction and is called the 2 dams 19 kauris share. Property No. 1 was part of the ancestral family property of Kashinath. Property No. 2 was not. The first connexion of the plaintiffs' family with property No. 2 was that on 18th February 1917, one Gopal Narain sold it to the plaintiffs' mother, Mt. Thakur Kuer. The transactions which took place with reference to the two properties now in question were fully investigated by the learned Subordinate Judge of Patna in the course of a long trial. His decision was that the plaintiffs have established their right to a three-fourths interest in each of these two properties and his conclusions have been concurred in by the High Court of Patna on appeal by these defendants. On this appeal no complaint is made of the decree being limited to a three-fourths interest. The trial Court's judgment is dated 31st March 1928, more than five years from the date of the plaint, and the decree of the High Court is dated 16th December 1932.

To deal first with property No. 1-the 5 annas 4 pies share : In 1913 Kashinath had executed in favour of his wife a mukarrari lease comprising this property and certain others. In 1915 this property was sold for arrears of road-cess and was purchased by Bipat Ram, the second of the present appellants, who in 1917 re-conveyed it to Mt. Thakur Kuer. The Courts in India having without difficulty found that the lady in this transaction was acting as her husband's nominee and on behalf of the joint family of which he was karta rightly concluded that these transactions did not exclude or affect the interest of the plaintiffs in this property. On 29th May 1920, however, one Durga Prasad who had lent money to Kashinath on a bill of exchange u