Ramaswami Gounder, J.:This petition has been placed before this Bench on a reference made by one of us, Ramaswami, J., “for deciding authoritatively whether letters of administration with the will annexed should be for the entire estate under the will or for a specific portion or part thereof”. The petitioner is one T.K. Parthasarathi Naidu, the son’s son of T. Parthasarathi Naidu. The latter owned a half share in house No. 9, Sydoji Lane, Triplicane, Madras, his brother, Balayya, being entitled to the other moiety in that property. It would appear that those two brothers owned this property as their self-acquisition and not as a joint family property, and so, both of them joined in the execution of a will, dated 29th May, 1919, which they got registered. Under that will, both the brothers dealt with their respective half share in the property, and we are only concerned with the will in so far as it relates to the disposition of T. Parthasarathi Naidu, the grandfather of the petitioner. He died in November, 1919, while his brother, Balayya, died in April, 1926. Parthasarathi Naidu left three sons; but he completely excluded the eldest son from the bequest, as he had seperated from the family after executing a release deed. The disposition, therefore, was in favour of the other two sons and their descendants. So far as the petitioner was concerned, he was given a moiety of the grandfather’s half share subject to the life interest in favour of his parents, the other moiety having been bequeathed to the youngest son, Sriramulu’s sons, Santhanagopal and Kothandapani; that is to say, under the will, the petitioner would be a beneficiary to the extent of an undivided ¼th share of the house property. By the said will, three persons were appointed executors, of whom two died and the third had signed a letter of renunciation, which has been filed into Court. In this petition, therefore, the petitioner prays for permission to prove the will in common form and that letters of administration with a copy of the will annexed may be granted to him limited to the undivided ¼th share which he got under the will. In this connection, it may be necessary to take note of a provision in the will which directed that if the testators died without discharging the debts which they might incur thereafter, the executors were to effect a sale of the house-property and discharge the debts, and with the balance, purchase another property or advance the same on a mortgage and make the income available for the legatees. In these circumstances the question was raised whether the petitioner was entitled to the letters of administration in respect of his share of the property. Ramaswami J., who made this reference, found that there was a conflict of opinion on that question not only in the other High Courts, but also in our Court, and felt that there should be an authoritative decision by a Bench of this Court.

On this reference, we feel indebted to Sri Veeraswami, Assistant Government Pleader, who took us through the relevant sections of the Indian Succession Act as well as the decisions of the various High Courts and also the English law bearing on this question. The answer to the question propounded in the order of reference must be found only in Chapters 1 and 2 of Part IX of the Indian Succession Act (Act XXXIX of 1925), for, the introductory section 217 prescribed that save as otherwise provided by the Act 01 by any other law for the time being in force, all grants of probate and letters of administration shall be made or carried out in accordance with the provisions of Part IX. Before examining the relevant sections of those two chapters, it may be necessary to remember the principle embodied in section 211 of the Act that the executor or administrator, as the case may be, of a deceased person is his legal representative for all purposes, and all the property of the deceased person vests in him as such. That is to say, that section makes it clear that the

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