On reunion, members of the family are entitled to an equal share of the family property, and the managing member of a joint Hindu family may be called upon to account in a partition suit to decide the available assets of the joint properties.

Phillips, J.

1. The defendants appeal against the partition decree having been dismissed, it remains to consider the cross appeal filed by the plainiiffs. The subordinate Judge has found that at the time of the reunion, the 1st defendant brought into the common stock property worth Rs. 40 more than the 1st plaintiffs father arid he has in consequence given plaintiffs a decree for only 9/20 of the property instead of one half share. Even if he is right in law, the amount of the share has been wrongly calculated ; for if the 1st plaintiffs father contributed Rs. 400 and 1st defendant Rs. 440 out of the total Rs. 840, as has been found, the respective shares would be 10/21 and 11/21. However, we have now to consider whether there should be this unequal distribution of the property. It is contended for the plaintiffs that a reunion between the parties restores them to their original status and that when a partition is effected, the shares are the same as they would be at the original partition irrespective of the amount of capital contributed by each coparcener. This is certainly the law in the Bombay Presidency. We find that in the Printed Judgments of the Bombay High Court Vol. I. p. 67; it was held that where after partition, the coparceners reunite, they are restored to their original position notwithstanding that the portion brought on reunion may be unequal. In Pranjivandas Shivlal v. I charam (1915) I.L.R. 39 Bom. 734 the same principle was affirmed. We see also that in Prankishen Paul Ghowdry v. Mothooramohan Paul Ghoudry 10 M.I.A. 403 the Privy Council held that a reunion of a brother to the family remitted him to his former status as a member of a joint Hindu family and it is was further held that, where one of the coparceners had acquired property during the period of separation, if the monies employed for that acquisition were drawn from the joint estate, it followed that on reunion the other brother was entitled,, upon the general principles of the Hindu" Law, to share in that property as an acquisition made by the use of the joint funds! No doubt in that case there was a written agreement entered into between -the brothers, but the Privy Council based their decision not only on the express provisions of the deed but on the general principles of the Hindu Law. If we follow that decision here, it is quite clear that the. property acquired by the 1st defendant during the period of separation must in the absence of evidence to the contrary, be presumed to have been acquired from the funds which he received out of the family estate, and that being so, the plaintiffs would be entitled to share in those acquisitions and therefore on partition to an equal share in the whole estate. The view that the coparceners are entitled propertionately to the capital they contribute on reunion is based on a passage in Smrithi Chandrika Ch. XII, para. 41 ,That passage appears to have been indirectly applied in; the case reported in Manjanatha v. Narayana (1882) I.L.R. 5 Mad. 362 but there is no such provision in the Mitakshara which is the main authority in this Presidency. The effect of that provision is to hold that there is no reunion in an undivided family, as such but only the constitution of a tenancy in common between the previous joint coparceners, each holding a definite share in the coparcenery. This appears to be opposed to the primary idea of a joint family in which there are no definite shares and the members take by survivorship, and it is this view that has apparently found acceptance in this Court as well as in 10 M.I.A. 403. In Narasimhacharlu v. Venkata Singaramma (1909) I.L.R. 33 Mad. 165 : 19 M.L.J. 719 it was held that succession in a reunited Hindu family governed by Mitakshara Law is by survivorship and in Kristnayya v. Venkatramayya (1909) 19 M.L.J. 713 a Full Bench of this Court held that this contention of proportionate shares could not be supported by any text of the Hindu Law and was opposed to the funda