Subramanya Ramachandra Iyer, C.J. - (1.) This appeal arises out c £ the judgment of Rajagopala Ayyangar J., in a suit instituted by Mrs. Padmini Chandrasekharan for a declaration that the business conducted in the name of Selvarajulu Chetty, her father, which later was transformed to Selvarajulu Chetty & Co., belonged exclusively to her as his sole heir and for certain allied and incidental reliefs. The business was that of Stevedore and ship chandler. Selvarajulu Chetty was about, twenty -four years old when he started the business at Pondicherry in the year 1926. The family had its home at Kurichikuppam near Pondicherry. Shortly thereafter, an office for the business was opened at Madras with a view to take up contracts at the Madras Harbour for handling cargoes. Selvarajulu was on all accounts a man of considerable initiative and enterprise with a flair for making friendships with foreign businessmen. His business naturally gained momentum and had established itself in the course of the next few years at various centres, Nagapattinam, Caddalore, Masulipatam, Kakinada, Visakhapatnam and Bhimlipatam. Success in business naturally led Selvarajulu to a prominent place in society as well as to lead him to take part in the politics of the French Settlements in India. The latter activity brought his life to an untimely end, as he was shot dead on 16th December 1938, presumably by a political miscreant. It was only a month earlier that Selvarajulu's wife had died of a short illness. The Plaintiff Padmini, their only child, was eleven years old when she was orphaned.
(2.) Selvarajulu at the time of his death was a member of a Hindu joint family consisting of himself, his younger brother Krishnaraj and paternal uncle Dakshinamurthi Chetty. The family had an aptitude for business. But several of its members who tried their hands at business did not, however, succeed. Most of them did not live long. We shall immediately refer to the fortunes of the family, in so far as it will be relevant for the disposal of the main question involved in the present appeal, namely, whether the extensive business conducted by Selvarajulu was his separate business or one conducted in his name by the joint family of which he was a member.
(3.) The Plaintiff 's original case was that there was a division in status between the several branches of the family in the year 1918 and consequently, the business which was started by her father eight years later must have been his individual business. On the other hand the case for the contesting Defendants was that the business of stevedoring was an ancestral business handed down to Selvarajulu from the time of his grandfather Chinnathambi Chetti. Both these extreme contentions were not even attempted to be proved. Rajaoopala Ayyangar J., found that although Chinnathambi Chetty and his sons were undivided, the family did not have much property nor were they engaged in any business during his lifetime. The learned Judge further found that there had been no division between the various members of the family in the year 1918 as alleged by the Plaintiff. Therefore, at the time when Selvarajulu started his business and up to the moment of his death, he was and continued to be a member of an undivided Hindu family along with his brother and his paternal uncle. Neither side has challenged the correctness of these findings in this appeal.;