Before we dispose of this Letters Patent Appeal, it is necessary to have clarification of certain facts connected with it. Otherwise,‘this interesting question of law cannot be properly discussed. It is contended for the appellants in the Letters Patent Appeal that at the time the final decree was passed on 4th March, 1942, the joint family of which Narayana Ayyar was the manager when he filed O.S. No.127 of 1934, and obtained the preliminary decree on behalf of the joint family on 17th December, 1936, had become disrupted by means of a partition between Narayana Ayyar and the other coparceners by a registered deed, dated 9th September, 1939. If that is so, then, at the time the final decree was passed on 4th March, 1942, under the general law, Narayana Ayyar would not have represented the other members of the family. But Mr. Swaminathan contends that in the application for the passing of final decree, one of the quondam coparceners filed an affidavit stating that the family had got dissolved by means of a partition on 9th September, 1939, but in spite of, that, a request was made to the Court to pass a final decree in favour of Narayana Ayyar as the original decr