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 transacti