The main legal point established in the judgment is the enforceability of the razinamah and the determination of management rights in a zamindari dispute.

1. The following are the undisputed facts of the case. About the beginning of the last century, the zamindars of Sivaganga and Guntamanaikanur made a free grant of the two villages of Vellikurichi and Thekkampatti, respectively, to Raja Bangaru Tirumalai Naikar, the last of the Naik rulers of Madura, for the maintenance of the rank and dignity of his family. The plaintiffs and the defendants Nos. 1 to 23 are his descendants. In 1844 a suit was brought by the present first plaintiffs father for a partition of these villages between the members of the family, but it was held by the Court of Sadr Adalat, after consultation with its pandits in Hindu law, that the corpus of the property was indivisible, but its annual produce was divisible, and they directed the Civil Court to determine the parties by whom and in what shares the joint participation of the annual profits of the estate was to be enjoyed. The Civil Judge thereupon, in September 1852, passed a decree, defining the shares of the produce to which the several members of the family were legally entitled. In the course of the execution of that decree, the parties entered into a razinamah (Exhibit C of the year 1857), whereby they agreed slightly to vary the distribution of the shares ordered by the decree as they had to include another member of the family who had been omitted from the decree to take a share. They further agreed that the estate should be held indivisible and inalienable in consonance with the decree, and they also agreed that the management of the estate should continue to be vested in the eldest line subject to certain supervision on the part of the other members. The father of defendants Nos. 1 and 2 represented the eldest line and managed the estate until his death in June 1892. The first and second defendants now represent the eldest line on whom the sole right of management has devolved but they are minors, and their mother, the twenty-fourth defendant, is managing the estate on their account with the help of an agent, defendant No. 25, appointed by her. The plaintiffs bring this suit to remove defendant No, 24 from the management and with her, her agent, the twenty-fifth defendant, on the ground that she is not entitled to manage the estate and has, moreover, been guilty of mismanagement thereof, in that she has not only not given them their share of the produce, but has also denied their right thereto, and that she has been improperly granting cowles for valuable pieces of land in favour of defendants Nos. 26 to 34. They pray that, on the removal of the twenty-fourth defendant from the management, either the first plaintiff or another fit member of the family may be appointed to the management and that the cowles granted by the twenty-fourth defendant to defendants Nos. 26 to 34 may be cancelled. The plaintiffs also pray for the recovery of their share of the produce for fasli 1304 which has been withhold from them. Defendants Nos. 3 to 23, all the other members of the family, but defendants Nos. 1 and 2, support the plaintiffs claim. The twenty-fourth defendant contests it on behalf of defendants Nos. 1 and 2, her sons, and defendants Nos. 26 to 34 also contest it so far as the cowles which they hold are concerned, which they allege were validly granted to them by the twenty-fourth defendant. The twenty-fourth defendant contends that she has the right of management as the natural guardian of her sons in whom the sole right to manage lies and that there has been no mismanagement, on her part. She also takes objection to the suit on two grounds--(1) that it does not lie upon the razinamah (Exhibit C) and (2) that it could not be brought without a certificate from the Collector under the Pensions Act XXIII of 1871. The Subordinate Judge has found that there was no objection to the suit on the two grounds just stated, but that there was no ground for the removal of the twenty-fourth defendant from the management which she was entitled to hold on