The main legal point established in the judgment is the application of the Limitation Act and the appropriate article for a partition suit.

1. The plaintiff appeals against the dismissal of his suit on the ground of limitation. The suit was filed to reopen a partition which was made between his father Nagayya and his uncle Venkataratnam, father of the defendants in 1901. That partition comprised not only the property that belonged to the family of these two brothers but also certain property which had belonged to their maternal grandfather Chinna Naganna and was at the time in the possession of his widow Akkamma. The plaintiffs father Nagayya received a larger share in that property than Venkataratnam and correspondingly smaller share in the ancestral property. Unfortunately Akkamma survived her grandsons and the property of Chinna Naganna instead of descending to them passed away to certain agnatic reversioners. These persons sued the plaintiff and obtained a decree and eventually possession of the maternal grandfathers property in his hands on 14th December, 1916. The plaintiff accordingly brought this suit in order to get the disparity between his and the defendants share redressed by a fresh adjustment of the ancestral property.

2. The first question that arises upon the issue of limitation is whether the plaintiff can claim the benefit of Section 8 of the Limitation Act, namely, whether his plaint was filed within 3 years of the attainment of his majority. The plaint is dated 14th December, 1922. We have two conflicting versions as to the date on which the plaintiff was born. He himself would put it at 22nd December, 1901, whereas the defence case is that it took place on the 18th January, 1899. It is unnecessary to say that, in order to avail himself of this limitation provision, it lies upon the plaintiff to establish his own version. Has he shown that the suit was brought within 3 years of his coming of age ? There is oral evidence on both sides, which the learned Subordinate Judge has, rightly we think, declined to rely upon. The witnesses do not include the plaintiffs mother, who would naturally be the best person to speak to the true circumstances. The plaintiff has secured the production of a birth register, Ex. A-3, which purports to contain a record of his birth on the date which he specifies. This register was no doubt produced from the proper custody, the Taluk Office, but we cannot say that it bears any signs which enable us to say that the relevant entry must have been made at the time to which it purports to relate. There is no serial number attached to it and indeed if there had been, it would have been of no probative value because the entry happens to come last in the year to which it relates. Moreover, there is no yearly abstract showing the total number of births, such as appears in some subsequent years, and therefore it is impossible to say whether this birth was or was not included. There are then certain records to show that the plaintiff was treated as a minor in some litigation to which he was a party, notably the rever-sioners suit itself and also a Small Cause suit which was filed in the year 1918. We think that a sufficient explanation of this is that those responsible for the litigation went on treating the plaintiff as a minor after he had in fact attained majority. It is true that in the absence of any counter-evidence, some weight might perhaps have been attached to the evidence furnished by the Small Cause suit, which was itself not instituted until 1918, after he had emerged from his minority. Further discussion however of the pieces of evidence above mentioned and of the oral evidence appears to us to be rendered quite useless by the existence of a record which to our minds conclusively shows the falsity of the plaintiffs case. This is a school admission register, Ex. VIII, dated 9th November, 1904, showing his. age as 6 years at that time. There is also entry in this register showing the actual date of birth as 1st July, 1898, but this appears to have been a later addition, and it is quite sufficient for our purpose