This is an appeal brought by defendants 1, 4 and 5 from a preliminary decree for partition and accounts passed by the District Court of North Arcot. The suit was originally brought by the first respondent in the Court of the District Munsiff at Arni but as the value of the properties involved was found to be beyond the pecuniary jurisdiction of that Court the plaint was returned to be presented to the proper Court and was later filed in the Court of the Subordinate Judge at Vellore from where it was transferred to the District Court.

The relationship of the parties to one another will appear from the following genealogical table:

The family originally lived in a village called Vallam, North Arcot District, but migrated more than sixty years ago to the village of Oorkudi in the same district during the lifetime of Pasam Lingappa Naidu, the common ancestor who died in the nineties of the last century. It is common ground, that the family then owned lands and houses both at Vallam and at Oorkudi, and it is also in evidence that Lingappa Naidu was doing some money lending on a small scale and acquired some properties. Under the management of the first defendant after Lingappa’s death, the money lending business was expanded and other properties at Oorkudi and elsewhere were purchased. But all was not well with the family as the youngest brother, the third defendant, fell into evil ways, incurred considerable debts by reckless living and was eventually adjudicated insolvent on his own petition. The plaintiff’s father left the village on account of some misunderstandings and sought employment in Mysore State where he died in 1931 or 1932. In 1926 the plaintiff was married and there was separation in mess between the members who till then were living together. These facts were not disputed before us.

It was the plaintiff’s case as disclosed in his plaint and in his evidence that the properties at Oorkudi alone were divided provisionally in 1928 as the third defendant was running into debts and it was thought desirable, in order to avoid trouble with his creditors, that the family properties should appear to have been divided, and that the family money lending transactions standing in the name of the first defendant and the properties purchased from the maternal uncle of the brothers should appear to have become the exclusive properties of the first defendant. When, however an attempt was made to bring into existence a document to that effect, the plaintiff and some others did not agree and the attempt was dropped. Thereafter in 1930, the provisional division of the Oorkudi properties was confirmed and some of the outstandings were also divided between the parties, the other immoveable properties and outstandings of the business being continued as joint family properties in the management of the first defendant on the understanding that he should account for these properties and that they should be divided after the disputes relating to the debts incurred by the third defendant were settled once and for all. After the third defendant obtained his discharge in 1937, the plaintiff demanded his share of the properties and outstandings which remained undivided and also of the properties subsequently acquired by the first defendant with the aid of family moneys, but failing to get satisfaction brought the present suit. Defendants 2, 3 and 7 supported the plaintiff and claimed that their shares also in the suit properties should be separated and given to them.

The first defendant and his sons, defendants 4 and 5 filed a joint written statement denying the main averments in the plaint. They alleged that the properties at Oorkudi were the only family properties and their income was hardly sufficient for the maintenance of the family. The family had no dealings or funds or outstandings. There was thus no family nucleus out of which other properties could be purchased. There was a complete partition in September, 1928 of all av