Varadachariar, J.

1. This is an appeal by the first defendant who seeks to defeat the claims of the plaintiffs as reversioners to the estate of one Sundararamiah, by setting himself up as the adopted son of Sundararamiah. Sundararamiah admittedly died on the 5th March, 1878, and it is not denied that he died of cholera. It is the appellants case that just before his death he orally authorised his wife to take a boy in adoption and that the first defendant who is the son of a cousin of Sundararamiah was accordingly adopted by the widow about a year after Sundararamiahs death.

2. This alleged adoption was the subject of adjudication in a suit for declaration instituted by the first plaintiff and his brothers so long ago as in 1883. (O.S. No. 877 of 1883.) In that litigation, the Court of first instance upheld the adoption; but, on appeal, the lower appellate Court held that the adoption was invalid as not authorised by Sundararamiah or consented to by the sapindas. This decision was confirmed in second appeal by this Court. The point for determination in this appeal is whether the decision in that litigation can operate as res judicata in the present litigation.

3. An argument s