The burden of proving that property held by an individual member of a joint family is family property rests upon the party alleging joint ownership. If the family possessed property with the aid of which the property in question could have been acquired, the onus shifts to the party alleging self-acquisition to affirmatively make out that the property was acquired without any aid from the family estate.

Anantakrishna Ayyar, J.

1. Plaintiffs claim for partition of some items of property which he alleged to be joint family property, though allowed by the first Court, was disallowed by the lower appellate Court. He has accordingly preferred this second appeal claiming a share in those properties.

2. The plaintiff and defendant 3 are the sons of defendant 1 by his wife, who died in 1891. Defendant 2 is the son of defendant 1 by his second wife, who has been made defendant 6 in the case after the death of defendant 1 during the pendency of the suit.

3. The plaintiff claims a share in the properties on the ground that (a) the presumption of Hindu Law is that all properties standing in the name of any member of the joint family is joint family property, and the onus of proving the same to be the self-acquired and separate property of any member is upon him, (b) the properties in dispute were acquired by defendant 1 with the aid of the sale proceeds of the ornaments of the plaintiffs mother (worth about Rs. 600) and also out of the moneys which belonged to one Thangathanni, it being alleged that Thangathanni was the deceased paternal aunt of defendant 1, and that she orally bequeathed Rs. 6,000 to defendant 1 and his sons.

4. The first Court upheld the contentions of the plaintiff with reference to ground 2 (b) put forward by him as it was satisfied from the evidence that defendant 1 could not have made these acquisitions from his earnings as a clerk or manager of an estate under the Court of Wards; and on the evidence it found that the acquisitions were made out of the moneys mentioned by the plaintiff. As regards ground 1 (a) put forward by the plaintiff the trial Court observed as follows:

The case in Muthan v. Puniakoti Mudaliar [1915] 31 I.C. 18 is authority for the proposition that, where one member of a joint Hindu family acquires property without the aid of ancestral or joint family funds, the property acquired will, in the absence of any indication of intention to the contrary, be owned by him as joint family property. It has been held in Krishnaji v. Paramanand [1919] 49 I.C. 240 that the presumption of jointness in respect of property subsequently acquired by each member of a joint Hindu family is not rebutted by the fact that the ancestral assets were small in proportion to the value of the subsequent acquisitions.

5. The trial Court accordingly held that the plaintiff was entitled to a share in the disputed items of properties also. On appeal by defendant 1s legal representatives (defendants 2 and 6), the lower appellate Court held that the plaintiff was not entitled to a share in the items in dispute; and hence the second appeal by the plaintiff.

6. The learned advocate for the appellant contended that both the grounds on which the District Munsiff decreed the claimed the plaintiff with reference to these items were tenable, that the presumption of Hindu Law was as held by the District Munsiff, and that the onus was on defendant 1 to prove his plea of self-acquisition. He also argued that there was no legal evidence to support the finding of the lower appellate Court that the properties were the self-acquisitions of defendant 1. He further urged that the lower appellate Court was wrong in holding that the plaintiffs case about Thangathanni having gifted Rs. 6,000 to defendant 1 and his sons was not proved.

7. I think that the findings of the lower appellate Court that Thangathanni was not shown to have possessed Rs. 6,000 and that it was also not proved that she gifted the same be defendant 1 and his sons as alleged by the plaintiff, are findings of fact binding on me in second appeal. No doubt there is the evidence of P.W. 1, among others, to support the plaintiffs allegation, as also some other oral and documentary evidence. But the question turned on appreciation Of evidence, and I am not in a position to say that the findings of fact arrived at by the lower appellate Court are not binding on me in second appeal. T