The facts necessary for the decision of this appeal may be briefly stated. One Perambala Chettiar and his two sons, one an adult and the other a minor, sold certain lands to the father of the third defendant on 26th January, 1920, for Rs. 46,000. Rs. 34,000 out of the price was paid by the vendee and for the balance of Rs. 12,000 the vendee executed on the same day a deed of simple mortgage mortgaging the properties which he had just purchased. The mortgage (Ex. P-2) was executed in favour of the vendors, namely, Perambala, Kanakasabai, Perambala’s son by his first wife and the first plaintiff in the present suit and “a male child unnamed”, who, it is admitted, is the present first defendant. The present second defendant was not then born. The first and second defendants are Perambala’s sons by his second wife. Though the mortgage deed was executed in favour of Perambala and his two sons then in existence, it is obvious that it was a mortgage in favour of the joint Hindu family. Perambala died on the 20th November, 1927, undivided from his sons.

On foot of the mortgage the present first and second defendants filed O.S. No. 15 of 1935 in the Court of the Subordin