The main legal point established in the judgment is the application of the principle of res judicata in determining the bar to a subsequent suit. The court also clarified the interpretation of Section 31 of the Nayar Act in the context of binding decrees on a tarwad.

RAMAN NAYAR, J. :- We think that the first Court was right in dismissing the respondent plaintiff's suit in the view that it was barred by res judicata and that the lower appellate Court was wrong in decreeing it in the view that it was not so barred.

2. The five items of property in suit admittedly belonged to a Nayar joint family (governed by the Travancore Nayar Act) known as the Akkaravaram family and were, along with the other properties of the family, in the possession of its Karanavan, Velayudhan, until his death in 1103 M. E. (1927-28 A. D.). Plaintiffs 1 and 2 are the daughters of the 18th defendant, Karthiyani by name; plaintiffs 3 to 6 are the minor children of the 1st plaintiff; and the 7th plaintiff is the minor daughter of the 2nd plaintiff. It is their case that the 18th defendant's mother, Lakshmi, was a sister of Velayudhan. Velayudhan had another sister by name Narayani, and he and the thavazhees of these two sisters constituted the Akkaravaram joint family to which the suit properties belonged. Soon after Velayudhan's death, there was a partition in this joint family by means of Ext. IV dated 10-11-1103 (23-6-1928) and, in this partition, the suit properties were allotted to the 18th defendant's thavazhee, then consisting of herself and her minor daughter, the 1st plaintiff. Velayudhan's son, the 1st defendant, however, managed to obtain possession of the properties and hence this suit for a declaration of the plaintiffs' title, for possession and for other reliefs.

3. According to defendants 1 and 2, the appellants herein, Velayudhan was the sole surviving member of the Akkaravaram joint family. The Narayani and Lakshmi, to whose thavazhees the plaintiffs and defendants 10 to 21 claim to belong, were not sisters of Velayudhan (who had no sisters but had two distant cousins by name Narayani and Lakshmi whose thavazhees have become, long since, extinct) but utter strangers, and the plaintiffs and these defendants are mere pretenders. The properties of the Akkaravaram joint family belonged exclusively to Velayudhan as its last surviving member, and, on his death, his children, defendants 1 and 2, succeeded to them as his heirs.

4. We are here concerned only with the claims of the thavazhee of the 18th defendant to which the plaintiffs belong - they are undivided from the 18th defendant - and need not concern ourselves with the claims of defendants 10 to 17 and 19 to 21. The matter directly and substantially in issue between the plaintiffs, on the one hand and the contesting defendants, defendants 1 and 2, on the other, is whether, at the time of Velayudhan's death, this thavazhee of the 18th defendant belonged to his joint family. This, it seems to us clear, was the matter directly and substantially in issue in a former suit p. S. No. 276 of 1106 (of the very Court in which the present suit was brought so that no question of the competency of the court which tried that suit to try the present suit arises) between, as we shall presently show, the same parties litigating, as is quite apparent, under the same title.

5. O. S. No. 276 of 1106 was a suit brought by the present 1st defendant in respect of item 1 of the properties in suit. This item had been bought by the present 9th defendant in execution of a money decree he had obtained against the 18th defendant and her sister Kamalakshi in O. S. No. 428 of 1104. The present 9th defendant was the first defendant in that suit while the 18th defendant was the 2nd defendant. The suit was for a declaration of the present 1st defendant's title to and possession of the property there in suit and (rather unnecessarily) for a cancellation of the decree and execution proceedings in O. S. No. 428 of 1104 to which the 1st defendant was in no sense a party. The suit was decreed in favour of the plaintiff therein (namely, the present 1st defendant) as representing the personal heirs of Velayudhan who it was held became entitled to this property on his death, Velayudhan be