C KRISHNAVENI AMMAL Vs. PSSUBRAHMANYAM CHETTY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Plaintiff sues on a series of mortgages. The following geneological tree will help to make the facts clear:

(2.) Defendant 5 is the Official Assignee representing defendant 1. Defendant 6 is another mortgagee. He has died and his executor is defendant 7. Thus the Official Assignee, and defendant 2 now represent Sadasiva's branch and defendant 4 represents Gangadhar's branch. Sadasiva and Gangadhara had a rice mill at Ponneri and a provision business in Madras. On 2 August, 1930, Sadasiva executed a promissory note, Ex. A, for Rs. 1900 in favour of the plaintiffs, and he is alleged also to have deposited the title deeds of 16 Audiappa Chetty Street, item 1 in the plaint schedule, as security. Ex. B dated 2 August, 1930 is the collateral security document and its admissibility is one of the main questions in issue. On 22 August, 1931, Sadasiva (for himself and as manager and guardian of his minor nephew defendant 3) and his son, defendant 1, mortgaged two other family properties, viz. 41 Guruvappa Chetty Street and 105 Egmore High Road, to defendant 6 for Rs. 2000 by deed. On 19 April 1932, Sadasiva and defendant 1 executed two mortgage deeds in favour of plaintiff: (1) Ex. C over item 1 for Rs. 2000, including Rs. 1900 due on Ex. A., (2) Ex. D over item 4 (the Ponneri property) for Rs. 500.

(3.) On 24 March 1931, a partition suit, C.S. No 471 of 1931, was filed in which it was held that there was a separation between Gangadhara's branch and Sadasiva's branch in October 1930. Plaintiffs here were not parties to that suit. The result of this suit was to allot to defendant 3's (Gangadhara s) branch not only the properties covered by Exs. B, C, and E but also the properties covered by defendant 6's mortgage. The Ponneri property covered by Ex. D was allotted to Sadasiva's branch. In 1934 defendant 6 filed a suit on his mortgage claiming substituted security over the properties allotted to Sadasiva. The present plaintiffs were not parties to that suit, which resulted in a decree by virtue of which defendant 6 purchased those properties except for the Ponneri property item 4, which was sold to a stranger subject to plaintiff's mortgage Ex. D.