Varadachariar, J.

1. This is an appeal by the defendant who has been directed by the decree of the lower Court to pay certain sums of money to the plaintiff, his son, towards maintenance. The plaintiff is an adult and is not under the Hindu Law ordinarily entitled to enforce payment of maintenance as a "personal" obligation of the father. Where the father is in possession of joint family property, the adult son is entitled to be maintained from out of the income of the joint family property but it is doubtful if he can maintain a suit for maintenance against the father when he could as well sue for partition. Where the property in the fathers possession is impartible the son would not, even if the impartible estate be joint family property, be entitled to sue for partition and in such cases a suit for maintenance has been permitted.

2. In the present case the plaint proceeded on the footing that the defendant was in possession of the Uttumalai Zamindari in some character other than that of separate property. The plaint also alleged that there was an immemorial and well-known custom prevalent in the Uttumalai Zamindari and all other Zamindaris according to which a person in th