JUDGMENT :- The plaintiff in O. S. No. 472 of 1967 on the file of the District Munsif Court. Tuticorin, is the appellant herein. He filed the suit for a declaration that he is the cultivating tenant in respect of the suit properties and for an injunction restraining the defendants, from interfering with his possession and enjoyment of the same. His case was that the suit properties originally belonged to one Nallaperumal, who died leaving two sons, Chinnakannu Pillai and Sundaram Pillai, that the suit properties came to be allotted to the share of Chinnakannu Pillai, that after his death his sons the defendants 1 to 4 became owners of the same, that he is a cultivating tenant of the suit properties although for the last 40 years since the time of Nallaperumal Pillai, that defendants 1 to 4 with the assistance of defendants 5 and 6 are trying to evict him from the suit lands by force and, that therefore, he was constrained to file the suit for the reliefs set out above.

2. It was contended by defendants 1 to 4 that the plaintiff was a lessee under Nallaperumal Pillai and thereafter under their father, that subsequently he became a tenant under them, that the lease being annu