RAMAKRISHNAN, J. :- This is a batch of connected appeals. It is common ground that the principal points in controversy arise in A. S. 390 of 1961 and therefore we will take up that appeal first for consideration.

2. The learned Principal Subordinate Judge of Tiruchirapalli who decided the original suit from which this appeal has arisen, O. S. 184 of 1953, has given a judgment covering a wide range of pleas as well as of issues which arise out of them. But for the purpose of the present set of appeals, the controversy has been narrowed down to a shorter number of issues, and arguments both of the appellants as well as of the respondents were confined to these issues. It is therefore sufficient for our purpose to consider only pleas as well as the evidence so far as they are necessary for deciding the points in controversy before us.

3. Before we go more fully into the points in controversy, it is necessary to refer to the anterior history of the family to whom the suit properties originally belonged and of how the members of the family dealt with the suit properties. One Chidambara Reddiar of Varagupadi in the Tiruchirapalli Dist. went to Rangoon in or about the year 1872 and