The main legal point established in the judgment is the entitlement to maintenance and share in the joint family properties under the Hindu Succession Act.

1. The defendants in the Original Suit are the appellants in the second appeal. The plaintiffs in the Original Suit are the respondents in the second appeal. The Original suit was filed by the respondents/plaintiffs for a) maintenance; b) a charge over of 1/6th share of the deceased first appellant/first defendant in the suit properties; c) dividing the suit properties into six equal shares and allotment of one such share to the second respondent/second plaintiff; d) rendition of accounts and e) costs. The learned trial judge decreed the suit with cost as prayed for and granted a decree for maintenance in favour of the first respondent/first plaintiff directing the deceased first appellant/first defendant to pay a sum of Rs.5,500/- as past maintenance from 1.1.1999 till the date of filing of the suit and subsequent maintenance from the date of suit till the death of the first appellant/first defendant at the rate of Rs.1,000/- per month; creating a charge over the share of the first appellant/first defendant in the suit properties except items 3, 6, 7, 14, 19 and 27 and a preliminary decree for partition directing division of the suit properties except items 3, 6, 7, 14, 19 and 27 into six equal shares and allotment of one such share to the second respondent/second plaintiff. The decree also directed the appellants/defendants to render true and correct account regarding the second respondent/second plaintiff’s share of the income derived from the properties and directed and also payment of cost.

2. On an appeal preferred in A.S.No.16/2003 on the file of the Principal District Judge, Tiruvannamalai, the learned lower appellate judge confirmed the decree in respect of maintenance, but modified the decree of the lower court in respect of the prayer for partition holding that the second respondent/second plaintiff was entitled to 8/42 share and the first respondent/first plaintiff was entitled to 1/42 share in the suit properties except items 3, 6, 7, 14, 19 and 27. As against the said judgment and decree of the lower appellate court, the present second appeal has been filed by the defendants. For the sake of convenience, the parties shall be referred to in accordance with their ranks in the suit and at appropriate places, their ranks in the appeal shall also be indicated.

3. The first defendant Rajagopal had married one Pachaiammal and through her he got one son and four daughters. They are: 1) Kamalakannan @ Setu (2nd Defendant), 2) Apeetha (5th appellant – not a party in the suit), 3) Tamil Selvi (3rd defendant), Selvi (4th defendant) and Anjala (5th defendant). Pachaiammal is no more. Contending that after the death of Pachaiammal, the first defendant married Kasthuri/the first plaintiff on 02.09.1992 in Annamalayar Temple, Tiruvannamalai, which was registered with Receipt No.8978 in the register maintained in Sri Arulmigu Arunachalaeswarar Temple, Tiruvannamalai; that out of the said wedlock, the second plaintiff Pannerselvam was born on 18.08.1996 at Government Hospital, Tiruvannamalai; that the said birth was registered in Tiruvannamalai Municipality with Registration No.1874/1996 on 19.08.1996; that till December 1998 they lived along with the first defendant; that thereafter due to the ill treatment caused by the first defendant, who had become addicted to drinks and also by his mother, the plaintiffs had to leave the first defendant and live in the house of the first plaintiff’s mother; that the first defendant, who inherited 2.00 acres of land from his father Chinnapaiya Gounder, who died 53 years prior to the filing of the suit, with no other source of income purchased 13.00 acres of land and put up a terraced house after demolishing a thatched house out of the income derived from the ancestral property inherited from his father and that therefore all the properties inherited by the first defendant from his father and the properties purchased by the first defendant were the joint family properties, in which t