Alfred Henry Lionel Leach, C.J.

1. This petition raises important questions with regard to the stamping of plaints in suits for the partition of estates of joint Hindu families. The petitioner is the minor son of a Hindu father. Through his mother as next friend he has filed a suit in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Kumbakonam for partition of the family properties and for possession of his one-fifth share therein. He has joined as defendants his father, his three brothers, and twenty-two other persons. The stranger defendants are made parties either as alienees of family properties or as creditors of the family. In his plaint the plaintiff avers that the family is one engaged merely in agriculture and that before the matters complained of, it had large cash resources. He alleges that his father has engaged in reckless speculation in land, in trade, and in litigation with the result that the cash resources have disappeared, the family properties have been sold or mortgaged and numerous debts contracted. The plaintiff says that his fathers transactions are not binding on the family, but he has not in terms asked for the setting aside of the alienations of family propert