JUDGMENT

1. The only question in this appeal is whether the judgment in a prior suit operates as res judicata between the parties so as to preclude the defendants from raising the pleas which they have raised in this suit. The present suit is one for fore closure of two mortgages, dated respectively the 1st of April 1902 and the 14th of November 1903,executed by Misri Naik in favour of one of the plaintiffs and the predecessors-in-title of the other plaintiffs. The original mortgagor is dead. The defendants to the suit were the three sons and three grandsons of the mortgagor, and the widow of a predeceased son. The defendants Nos. 1-7, who are the principal defendants in this case, raised various pleas, denying the mortgages, denying payment of consideration and denying the existence of family necessity for the execution of the mortgages. The Court below has held that by reason of the decision in a previous suit it is no longer open to the defendants to raise these pleas. The previous suit to which reference has been made in the judgment of the Court below was a suit brought in 1909 by one Jia Lal, a subsequent mortgagee of the property comprised in the mortgages now in suit. In tha