Judgment :- 1. Defendant 6 in O.S. No. 24 of 1103 on the file of the Trivandrum District Court has preferred this appeal against an order passed by the learned District Judge of that Court regarding the objection he raised to the Court auction sale and resultant delivery by Court, of an item of immovable property. The appellant's mother brought the above named suit in forma pauperis and for realising the court-fee due on the plaint and on the memorandum of appeal preferred against the decision of the trial Court, the State took out execution against her and brought to sale the property in dispute here which was item (1) in the plaint. The State itself purchased the property and also obtained delivery. At that stage the appellant intervened with his objection that the property belonged to a sub-tarwad composed of his mother and her four children. Defendants 6 to 9, that the mother by herself had no saleable interest in the property and that the Court sale conveyed no title to the State, the auction purchaser. The objection petition also set out that as the senior male member of the sub-tarwad the appellant was in possession of the property and that no delivery was actually effected in favour of the State. Alternatively it was claimed that in case the Court found that possession had passed to the State the property should be redelivered to the appellant. 2. Admittedly the property was bequeathed to the plaintiff in the suit and her children under a will. The parties being Christians the lower Court rightly repelled the case that the legatees under the will constituted a sub tarwad. The Court further found that under the terms of the concerned will the plaintiff was only entitled to a 1/5 share of the property and that the sale certificate conveyed to the State the plaintiff's 1/5 share alone. Possession was found to have passed to the State of the entire property, but no redelivery as asked for by the appellanst was granted. Instead the Court in the concluding paragraph of its order said: "In the circumstances I orders that 4/5 of the decree schedule item 1 should be re-delivered to the petitioner on his applying for a commission to effect the division and after the division is made by the Court in receipt of the Commissioner's report. Instead the Court in the concluding paragraph of its order said: "In the circumstances I orders that 4/5 of the decree schedule item 1 should be re-delivered to the petitioner on his applying for a commission to effect the division and after the division is made by the Court in receipt of the Commissioner's report. If he does not apply for a commission in two weeks Sirkar may apply for commission to effect the division and to give possession to them of the one-fifth share of the property". 3. In the Court below the position taken up by the State was that the Court auction sale operated to convey the entire interest in the property to the State. No attempt was however made before this Court by any cross appeal or memo of objections to reagitate that question. In other words, the State submitted to the lower Court's decision that by the Court sale it became entitled only to a 1/5 share of the property. The appellant's learned counsel made a faint attempt to show that the plaintiff in the suit and her children constituted a sub-tarwad. As indicated earlier that case has no legs to stand upon. The more serious arguments raised in the appeal were that on the finding that the Court sale operated to convey only the mother's undivided 1/5 share in the property to the State the lower Court went wrong in refusing to redeliver the property to the appellant and that the Court's direction to effect a division in the present proceeding went beyond its powers. 4. In our opinion the appellant's learned counsel is plainly right in both these contentions. So long ago as 1888 in the case reported in Raman Padmanabha Iyer v. Madhavan Rama Iyer (7 TLR Appendix page 50) a Division Bench of the Travancore High Court had pointed out that in circumstances similar to the present the Court auction purchaser cannot be given actual possession pursuant to his sale certificate and that his remedy was to obtain possession of his share after effecting a division of the property by metes and bounds. In that case the sale was with respect to an undivided half-share in joint family property and the court had directed a division to be effected by the Amin entrusted with the task of effecting delivery pursuant to the sale certificate. In that case the sale was with respect to an undivided half-share in joint family property and the court had directed a division to be effected by the Amin entrusted with the task of effecting delivery pursuant to the sale certificate. Unlike here it was only the share so divided that the purchaser was put in actual possession of. Still the learned judges remarked that the order of the Zilla Judge to make a partition of the property between the appellant and the respondent was illegal and extra judicial. The operative portion of the order of the High Court in that case reads: "In a case of this kind possession ought to be given under S. 248, Civil Procedure Regulation by a proclamation leaving the joint tenant to effect a partition of the property by metes and bounds." 5. The view the learned judges took has ample support in the decisions of the Privy Council and of the older High Courts in India. In Deendyal Lal v. Jugdeep Narain Singh (1877) ILR 3 cal. 198) the Privy Council said that the purchaser at a Court sale of the right, title and interest of one co-sharer acquires merely the right to compel a partition as against the other co-sharers which the judgment-debtor possessed. Six years later their Lordships reiterated this position in Hardi Narain Sahu v. Ruder Perkash Misser (1883) ILR 10 Cal. 626 (PC). What was held there was that by the sale in that case not the father's share, but the interest which he had, namely, the right which he would have had to a partition and to what would have come to him passed to the purchaser. In Balaji Anant Rajadiksha v. Ganesh Janardan Kamathi (1881) ILR 5 Born. 499 the Bombay High Court took a similar view. In that case it was pointed out that the purchaser's remedy was by a suit for partition and that he could not claim to be put in joint possession, with the other members of his judgment-debtor's undivided Hindu family, of the family property. In Yelumalai Chetti v. Srinivassa Chetti (1906) ILR 29 Mad. 294) the Madras High Court also expressed a similar view of of the purchaser's right and also pointed out that the Court cannot on a mere application for execution by such purchaser enforce his right by an order for partition. 6. In Yelumalai Chetti v. Srinivassa Chetti (1906) ILR 29 Mad. 294) the Madras High Court also expressed a similar view of of the purchaser's right and also pointed out that the Court cannot on a mere application for execution by such purchaser enforce his right by an order for partition. 6. These are no doubt cases relating to the purchase of the rights of an undivided member of a Hindu joint family. The learned Government Pleader stated in his argument that in the case in hand the parties were tenants-in-common and the rule of the above decisions cannot be applied to the present case. The same argument was raised in other cases and we shall first refer to the words Varugis, J. (as he then was) employed to repel it in Mariyam v. Ponnunayanan Pillai (8 Cochin LIZ 273). After referring to the Privy Council decision in Hardi Narain Sahu v. Ruder Perkash Misser (ILR 10 Cal. 626) and to a decision of the Bombay High Court to which we shall presently refer, the learned judge said: "For the counter-petitioners it is urged that the cases above cited were cases of joint Hindu families and that the law is different in the case of tenants-in-common. We are not aware that there is any distinction in respect of the right to possession between a joint tenant and a tenant-in-common". 7. The learned judge then proceeded to quote from the Bombay decision he cites in his judgment viz., Naro Gopal Kulkarni v. Paragowda Basagowda ((1917) 39 IC 23) a decision by Sir Basil Scott, C.J. and Heaton, J. There the transfer of the undivided interest of a member of a joint Hindu family was effected at a private sale and the question for decision was what the alienee's rights were. It was held that he only acquired a right to partition and not to possession before partition. In his judgment the learned Chief Justice Sir Basil Scott Kt. observed: "That an alienation by a joint tenant effects a severance as a result of which the alienee before division by metes and bounds becomes a tenant-in-common: See Jogeswar Narain Deo v. Ram Chandra Dutt (1896) ILR 23 Cal. 670 (PC) and Udaram Sitaram v. Ranu Panduji (11 BHCR 76)". 8. observed: "That an alienation by a joint tenant effects a severance as a result of which the alienee before division by metes and bounds becomes a tenant-in-common: See Jogeswar Narain Deo v. Ram Chandra Dutt (1896) ILR 23 Cal. 670 (PC) and Udaram Sitaram v. Ranu Panduji (11 BHCR 76)". 8. It is the sentence above quoted occurring at page 25 of the report in Naro Gopal Kulkarni v. Paragowda Basagowda (39 IC 23) that Varugis, J. extracted in his judgment in Mariaim v. Ponnunayanan Pillai (8 Cochin LIZ 273). That one sentence effectively disposes of the argument that the law on the point is different for joint tenants and tenants-in-common. The alienee of the right, title and interest of a joint tenant is only a co-tenant with the other joint tenants of the alienor's family. In the case last mentioned Mariyam v. Ponnunayanan Pillai (8 Cochin LIZ 273) it was the undivided interest of a member of a Christian family that was sold in Court auction. The property belonged to the members of that family in co-ownership and what was held was that the auction purchaser of the undivided interest should seek his remedy in a suit for partition. The lower court had said that the only remedy of the co-owner who objected to the auction-purchaser being given possession was to recover joint possession and added that whichever party may feel inconvenienced by such joint possession may sue for partition and determine the joint possession. That view was held to be wrong. The decision in Mariyam v. Ponnunayanan Pillai (8 Cochin LIZ 273) was followed in Meenka v. Anna (23 Cochin LIZ 309). There also the original owners were Christians and they were co-owners with respect to the property in dispute. 9. A further point raised by the learned Government Pleader was that on the date delivery was effected in favour of the State the plaintiff, to realise whose dues to the State by way of courtfees the sale was held, was in actual possession of the property and that therefore the State was entitled to remain in possession until the appellant or other co-owners obtained their respective shares in partition. The question as to whether the mother or her eldest son, the appellant, was in actual possession was one of the points in dispute before the learned judge in the Court below and the learned judge did not think it necessary to record a finding with respect to it. Further, as pointed out in Mariyam v. Ponnunayanan Pillai (8 Cochin LR 273) the possession of one co-owner is possession of all so far as the stranger is concerned. 10. In view of the long current of decisions referred to above we have no hesitation to hold that the lower Court's order cannot be sustained and we accordingly set it aside. The property will be redelivered to the appellant and he will be entitled to remain in possession of the entire property until the State or other co-owners obtain their respective shares from him by seeking partition by metes and bounds. 11. Regard being had to the law as laid down in the cases referred to in this judgment and the mischievous results what is known as Oodukur possession ordinarily leads to, we cannot accede to the learned Government Pleader's suggestion to leave the parties in Oodukur possession of the property. We are free to confess we are no admirers of that form of joint holding of land and do not desire to bring such holdings into existence as a result of our decisions. Further to do so here would be to run counter to what we ourselves have said as to the rights of, and remedies open to a Court auction purchaser of an undivided share in common properties whether the properties happened to be held by the original owners as joint tenants or tenants-in-common. 12. The lower Court will pass appropriate orders regarding the profits collected by the receiver and the profits for the period between the date of delivery to the State and the date on which the receiver took possession of the property in the light of our decision in this appeal. The appellant will receive his costs here and in the Court below from the State. Allowed.