The main legal point established in the judgment is that the entire document must be considered to determine the nature of the arrangement, and the real intention of the parties must be gathered. The provisions for maintenance, control, possession, and alienation of properties were crucial in determining whether the document evidenced a partition or a maintenance arrangement.

Somayya, J.

1. The sole question in this appeal is whether Ex. 12 of 1896 evidences an out and out partition or only a maintenance arrangement. The suit is one for partition and is resisted on the ground that there was an out and out partition effected by Ex. 12 and that therefore the present suit is not maintainable. Both the lower Courts held that Ex. 12 evidences a partition and defendants 25 to 50 who support the plaintiff appeal.

2. Exhibit. 12 was executed on 6th October 1896. It is styled a Kudumba Nischaya Pathram on a deed of family arrangement and was executed by all the then existing members, adults and minors in all 41 in number. They were all members of the Muttathil tarwad. Sekhara Menon, the first executant, was the then karnavan and defendant 6 was the next anandravan. The document is a very lengthy one and contains as many as 54 paragraphs. A number of clauses have a bearing on the question whether the document is to be treated as a partition deed or as a mere maintenance arrangement.

3. A number of decisions have been cited before me. Some reports of the Cochin Chief Court which were cited before the lower Court were also cited before me as well as some decisions of the Travancore High Court. As more than one Judge who has had to deal with such documents has remarked, ultimately the decision rests upon the reading of the particular document as a whole. Unlike documents in the rest of the Presidency, those on the West coast present this peculiar feature which was occasioned by the fact that until recently a right of partition was not recognized unless all the adult members of the tarwad agreed. The karnavan who is the manager of the tarwad was often mismanaging the properties and the attempts of the junior members was to prevent this mismanagement by bringing about what are called family karars, or arrangements for the better management of the family properties, the chief object of which was to secure proper management of the properties and fair maintenance to all the members of the tarwad and such karars are very common on the West coast.

4. A few principles have been laid down by all the decisions and they may be referred to. The first is that the whole document must be read and construed. The Courts must have regard to the declared object of the document which is often contained in the preamble whether the arrangement was brought about to ensure the maintenance of the members or to bring about a division. Ordinarily, maintenance arrangements are revokable and are not, except in some extraordinary cases, permanent. "Arrangements for maintenance will not ordinarily be viewed as permanent arrangements, though it is not impossible there should be such arrangement. Divisions for enjoyment short of partition that are sometimes entered into are of this character": Sundara Ayyars Malabar Law, page 150. Where a document is styled a partition deed or a deed of maintenance, and the other terms of the document are not inconsistent with treating the document as such, the Court will not hesitate to construe it in that way. In other cases all the clauses will have to be read together and the real intention of the parties has to be gathered.

5. In this case, the document is styled a "Kudumba Nischaya Pathram" or "a deed of family management." When parties intend a partition deed, they almost invariably use the well-known expression "bhaga pathram." In a number of decisions comment is made on the fact that the deed is styled only a "nichaya pathram" and not "bhaga pathram" on the ground that the expression "bhaga pathram" is a well-known expression which is almost invariably used when a division is intended. As Venkataramana Rao J. states in S. A. Nos. Sivan Kutti Keyi v. Mariyumma 891 to 893 of 1937, It is no doubt true, as pointed out by Mr. Govinda Menon, that the name given to a document, is not conclusive of the nature of the arrangement which the document embodies. The fact that they are styled deeds of settlem