Satyanarayana Rao, J.-This is an appeal by the first defendant against the preliminary decree for partition passed by the learned Subordinate Judge in O.S. No. 24 of 1943. It is unnecessary to set out the facts of the case elaborately and it will be sufficient to confine the facts in so far as they are relevant to the disposal of the contentions that have been raised in this appeal. The first defendant and one Krishnaswami Naicker were brothers being members of an undivided Hindu joint family. The family owned properties specified in the various schedules attached to the plaint. Krishnaswami Naicker died in June, 1942, leaving behind him the plaintiff, his widow and an unmarried daughter, the second defendant. The widow instituted the present suit for partition and separate possession of a half share in the family properties basing her claim on the rights conferred upon her by the Hindu Women’s Rights to Property Act, 1937. It has now been finally decided by the Federal Court that this Act as it then stood does not operate to regulate succession to agricultural land in the Governors’ Provinces and also that it does not operate to regulate devolution by survivorship of such