Ramaprasada Rao, J.-The plaintiff in O.S. No. 86 of 1967 on the file of the Subordinate Judge of Chidambaram, is the appellant. Muthusami Padayachi is the common ancestor. He married twice and his senior wife is called Pattathammal and his second wife was known as Pattayee. Muthusami Padayachi originally belonged to Silam -bur in Trichi district. He had two sons through his first wife, who are the husband of the first defendant in the action and the 4th defendant herein. The plaintiff is the son through the junior wife. The senior wife died in or about 1940 and the junior wife in 1943. Though Muthusami Padayachi left a daughter through his first wife, she died leaving a minor daughter who also died in 1949. Muthusami Padayachi, therefore, left behind him surviving the first defendant’s husband as the eldest son, the 4th defendant and the plaintiff as his second and third sons. Muthusami Padayachi originally belonged to Silambur and it is common ground that he divided his ancestral properties with his brothers and he secured considerable properties in the village of Silambur. After he married his first wife, who was a native of Tholuvur he shifted to the said village. The plaintiff’s case is that though Muthusami Padayachi shifted to Tholuvur, he had considerable income from the joint family properties and with the assistance of such properties, he purchased various properties in the name of his senior wife at Tholuvur and those properties, though standing in the name of the senior on the first wife Pattathammal, should for all purposes be deemed to be the family properties and Pattathammal was only a benamidar. On the foot of the said allegations and also on the ground that Muthusami Padayachi died without effecting a partition, the plaintiff filed the action for declaration that he is entitled to one-third share in all the properties mentioned in the plaint schedules A to E and for a partition and separate possession and allotment of the shares of himself, the first defendant’s branch and the 4th defendant’s branch. According to the plaintiff, such properties are partible properties amongst the three branches referred to above. The plaintiff, of course, gave several details, regarding the manner and the method of purchase of various items of properties in the schedules by Muthusami Padayachi and claimed his share therein. a. Defendants 1 to 3 filed a common written statement. According to them, the ancestral properties acquired by Muthusami Padayachi in a partition between himself and his brothers were rain-fed lands of an extent of 18 acres and incapable of yielding any income. They would aver that the income was not even enough to maintain the family and consequently the suggestion of the plaintiff that Muthusami Padayachi purchased a further extent of 21 acres and built up a house in Tholuvur from the income of the Silambur lands is only a myth. They, therefore, deny that such of those properties which stood in the name of Pattathammal are not to be brought to the hotch-pot for division and that the plaintiff wrongly included those properties as partible properties. The defendants had claimed that Muthusami Padayachi’s first wife, Pattathammal, belonged to a very rich and affluent family and the properties which stood in her name were all settled on her, or provided to her by her father and her ancestors and that Muthusami never contributed any money towards the purchase of the said properties. We are not setting out herein the various items of properties contained in the suit schedules which are referred to by the plaintiff as family properties, but by defendants as Pattayee Ammal’s properties and which, according to them, are not partible amongst the sharers of the joint family of which Muthusami Padayachi was the ancestor. This is so because, no particular argument was addressed before us on any identifiable item of the schedules as having been purchased by Muthusami Padayachi at a particular point of time from and out

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