The main legal point established in the judgment is the reliance on evidence to establish the testator's sound mind and the validity of adoption, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Indian Succession Act, Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, Evidence Act, and Registration Act.

1. The principal questions raised in this case are, first, whether the will (Exhibit I) was executed by the deceased Kuppayyar when he was of sound mind; secondly, whether the second defendant was the validly adopted son of Kuppayyar; and thirdly, if the second defendant was not validly adopted, whether he is nevertheless entitled to take the property under the will as the persona designata.

2. The District Judge has found the first question in favour of the defence, and we have no doubt that that finding is correct. That the will was executed by Kuppayyar is really beyond dispute. It is sufficient on this point to refer to the Sub-Registrars evidence, before whom the testator Kuppayyar admitted the execution, and the fact that the fourth defendant, the nearest reversioner and father of the plaintiffs himself, has attested the execution by Kuppayyar. As to the state of mind of the testator at the time of his execution of the will, it is quite true that he was then in extremis, so that it lies on the party propounding the will to make out by clear and satisfactory evidence that the testator was in a fit and proper state of mind to understand and appreciats what he was doing. This has, in our opinion, been most satisfactorily established by the evidence called on behalf of the defence. There is first the evidence of the writer of the will (whom there is no ground whatever for discrediting) which shows that it was on the testators own instructions that he drafted the will, and that those instructions were given spontaneously. Then there is the evidence of the two village officers--maniem and karnam--equally satisfactory witnesses which proves that the testator was fully aware of what he was doing when ho signed the will, and their present evidence is corroborated by the statements made by them contemporaneously before the Sub-Registrar. The evidence of this latter officer is to our mind conclusive on the point. He questioned the testator regarding the will andsatisfied himself by his own observation as well as by the evidence of the village officers whom he examined in accordance with a rule of the registration department, that the testator was in the full possession of his senses. We consider the attempt made to impute corrupt conduct to the Sub-Registrar was entirely without foundation and altogether unjustifiable. Exhibit F that was put forward to suggest that he had received an illegal gratification in the matter of the registration is a patent concoction, it bears a date corresponding with the 27th February, the day on which the document was presented, and aeceptad for registration, and the statement therein made that the Sub-Registrar had then been postponing return of the document from day to day is intrinsic evidence of its fabricated character. All the above direct evidence in favour of the testators state of mind is confirmed by the fact that the testator signed his name a number of times in the schedule to Exhibit I in the presence of the Sub-Registrar; and those signatures arc all natural and in their appropriate places indicating that the testator was in the possession of his faculties. It is scarcely necessary to add that the fourth defendant would not have attested the document, which cut off the reversionary right of himself and his sons, unless he was fully convinced that the testator was in his proper senses. The evidence of the plaintiffs seventh eighth and fifteenth witnesses to which our attention was specially drawn does not meet the evidence for the defence to which we have referred. It is vague and inconclusive even if true, but in our opinion it is entirely untrustworthy. Turning to the provisions of the will they are simple and required no great effort of the mind to grasp--in effect the terms amount to nothing more than that the second defendant should take the whole property, protect the two remaining members of the family and maintain the charities. We have, therefore, no hesitation in deciding