JUDGMENT

1. The contest in this appeal is between two rival claimants to mortgagee rights under a deed dated 12th December 1913, executed by Chhadammi Lal, father of defendant 1, in favour of Sheo Adhar for a sum of Rs. 3,000. The position of the contending parties will be presently explained. Two suits were brought in the Court of the Subordinate Judge, Cawnpore, one by the present appellant, Suraj Kumar for enforcement of the aforesaid mortgage, and the other by the respondent, Mt. Chandra Kala, for the same purpose. The two suits were tried together. In the result a decree was passed in the suit brought by the respondent, Mt. Chandra Kala. The present appellant's suit was dismissed. The mortgagor has acquiesced in the decree passed against him. The present appeal was preferred by the appellant, Suraj Kumar and is directed solely against the respondent, Mt. Chandra Kala as regards her right to enforce the mortgage.

2. The following pedigree will explain the position of the parties inter se:

                    SADA NAND                  (died in 1918)                         |         _______________________________         |                             |      Suraj Kumar                  Sheo Adhar (plaintiff-appellant)    (died 8th September 1923)                                     |                         _____________                         |                   Sheo Kumar   =  Mt. Chandra   (died 25th September 1926)   |  Kala (defen-                                |  dant-respon-                                |  dent                                |                          Jagat Narain                       (died 27th September 1927)

3. It will be seen from the above pedigree that Sheo Adhar's branch has no male descendant left and that, on the death of Jagat Narain, the last surviving male descendant of his branch, his interests, whatever they might have been, devolved upon his mother, Chandra Kala, the defendant-respondent. The mortgage-deed in question was executed in favour of Sheo Adhar. The plaintiff-appellant's case, as set out in his plaint, is that he and Sheo Adhar were members of a joint Hindu family and that the mortgage in suit formed part of their joint family property, that after Sheo Adhar's death he and Sheo Kumar with his son, Jagat Narain, formed a joint Hindu family and that on the death of Jagat Narain, he is the sole surviving member of the family and therefore entitled to the mortgagee rights under the deed in question. As regards the defendant-respondent, Mt. Chandra Kala, he alleges that she is not entitled to anything, but maintenance, being the widow of a deceased member of the joint family.

4. The defendant, Mt. Chandra Kala, on the other hand, contends that the mortgage in suit belonged exclusively to Sheo Adhar, on whose death his interest devolved upon his son Sheo Kumar and, on the latter's death, on his son Jagat Narain, on whose death the mortgagee rights became vested in herself as the mother of Jagat Narain. It will thus appear that the principal question in the case is whether the mortgagee rights under the deed in suit belonged to a joint Hindu family consisting of Suraj Kumar and Sheo Adhar or to Sheo Adhar alone as his exclusive property. The defendant-respondent contested the plaintiff's claim on the ground that Sheo Adhar and Suraj Kumar were not members of a joint Hindu family and that, in any case, the mortgage in suit did not form part of the joint family property, assuming they had any.

5. The learned Subordinate Judge set down two main questions for decision : (1) whether the appellant, Suraj Kumar and Sheo Adhar together with his descendants, formed a joint Hindu family, and (2) whether the mortgagee rights in controversy belonged to such joint family. He found on the first question in favour of the plaintiff-appellant, holding that the joint family character of the family which existed from the time of Sada Nand, never disappeared. But on the second question he arrived at a