K KRISHNA MENON Vs. KKRISHNAN NAIR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The principal second appeal is 468 of 1915 and the 2nd defendant is the appellant therein. The suit out of which that second appeal has arisen was brought by several of the junior members of a tarwad of which the 1st defendant is the Karnavan. The 2nd defendant is the melcharthdar of the plaint properties under a melcharth deed granted by the Karnavan. The 3rd defendant is the senior Anandravan. The plaint admits in paragraph S.A.O. 468 etc of 1915 that the 1st defendant is "the Karnavan and Manager " though it refers in paragraph 4 to a karar of 1906 under which the 3rd defendant was to carry on the management under the 1st defendant by virtue of a muktyamamah and was to collect the rents, michavarams &c and incur expenses relating to the maintenance of the tavazhis and so on. The suit was brought for declaring that the melcharth obtained by the 2nd defendant, a junior member, from the 1st defendant on the 12th February 1907 in respect of the schedule properties is not binding on the plaintiffs or on the tarwad; for directing the 2nd defendant to surrender to the plaintiffs those items of the plaint schedule which lie had recovered from two of the five prior kanomdars (after instituting suits and obtaining decree against them for redemption on the strength of the melcharth); and for other appurtenant reliefs including an injunction against the 2nd defendant from recovering the other properties in the plaint schedule held by other prior kanomdars.

(2.) The grounds on which the melcharth of the 2nd defendant is attacked are set out in paragraph 7 of the plaint. The facts that in the suits brought by the 2nd defendant, O.S. Nos. 398 and 399 of 1910, the Karnavan the 1st defendant, was a party, that he and the former kanomdar contested the validity of the melcharth in favour of the 2nd defendant and that their contentions were disallowed are not mentioned in the plaint.

(3.) The 2nd defendant in his written statement while pleading on the merits that his melcharth was binding on the tarwad also pleaded that the question of the validity of his melcharth against the tarwad was res judcata against the tarwad including the plaintiffs by reason of the findings in the former suits. The learned District Munsif upheld the contentions of the 2nd defendant both on the merits of the melcharth and also on the question of res judicata and dismissed the plaintiffs suit.