Subba Rao, J.-This is a defendant’s appeal against the preliminary decree for partition in Original Suit No. 24 of 1946 on the file of the Court of the Subordinate Judge, Masulipatnam. The plaintiff is the paternal grandfather of the defendant. The defendant’s father was Satyanarayana who died in the year 1921. They constituted members of a joint Hindu family and possessed of immoveable properties set out in the A and B schedules annexed to the plaint and some moveables. The plaintiff filed the above suit for partition of the family properties and. for profits The defendant inter alia pleaded that there was a partition of the family properties through the intervention of mediators and he was put in possession of the properties that fell to his share. He relied upon a document embodying the arrangement between the parties. He also resisted the suit on the ground that the plaintiff was precluded from questioning the alleged partition on the doctrine of part-performance.

As many as eleven issues were raised in the suit but it is unnecessary to consider them in detail as the learned advocates confined their arguments before us only on two points.

The learned Subordinate Judge hel