ARUMILLI PERRAZU Vs. ARUMILLI SUBBARAYADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals raise a question of great and far-reaching importance with regard to the rights of succession in the Presidency of Madras, but this is associated with a series of relatively unimportant matters relating to questions of accounts that have arisen in these circumstances.

(2.) The first plaintiff in the suit, who is the first respondent to each appeal, was the manager for many years of a joint family estate which appears greatly to have prospered under his care. Distrust, however, arose, and was apparently well justified, as to his dealing with certain portions of the estate, and elaborate enquiries were set on foot outside the Courts for the purpose of ascertaining what the true position was. This first respondent-uneasy, it is asserted, as to the prospect of proceedings being brought against him as the result of these enquiries-instituted proceedings himself, to which the appellants were parties, alleging that they also had been in custody of part of the joint family estate, and asking for accounts and consequential relief, to which demand, among other answers, a claim was put forward that the plaintiff should render an account of the joint family properties and his management from 1898 onwards. The questions associated with these claims have been before the Subordinate Judge and before the High Court. Both these Courts refused the claim for the general account and decided the various questions in issue that were raised on the accounts. Apart from the dispute as to the rights of succession, the claim for the general account and the following items only are the subject of these consolidated appeals : First, the appellants say that the plaintiff should pay interest at nine per cent, on the money misapplied in accordance with the direction of the Subordinate Judge, this direction being overruled by the, High of Court, who reduced it to six per cent.; secondly, they assert that the High Court was wrong in deciding that certain items of Schedule B and Schedule C of the Supplemental Schedule B were the joint property of the family; and finally they assert that the High Court was wrong in excluding from the items on which interest was payable a sum of Rs. 7,000, which was the subject of a promissory note held by the plaintiff.

(3.) With regard to the claim for the general account, this has been refused by both Courts. The High Court based their decision upon the ground that all the items in respect of which the plaintiff was alleged to have been guilty of misconduct had been investigated and set out in the schedules which were before the consideration of the learned Judge, who had dealt with them item by item as appeared in his judgment. They continue in these words:- What more could be done, even if we direct general accounts, it is difficult to see.