Judgment :- 1. This second appeal arises out of a suit for partition of a Nair tarwad. According to the plaint allegations plaintiff and defendants 1 to 9 are members of an undivided Nair tarwad of which Elayachi Narayani Amma was the common ancestress. Plaint items 1 to 4 are properties gifted to the said Narayani Amma by her husband in 1073; items 5 and 6 are acquisitions made by the first defendant who, according to the plaintiff, is the karnavan of the tarwad; and item 7 is an acquisition in the name of the second defendant. Plaintiff's case is that Narayani Amma's husband gifted items 1 to 4 for the benefit of the whole tarwad and that items 5 to 7 were acquired with tarwad funds and belonged to the tarwad. Plaintiff brought the suit for partition and recovery of possession of her one-twentieth share in the tarwad properties. Defendants 1, 2, 20, 27 to 30, 31, 32, 33 and 34 filed written statements and contested the suit. Their contentions were to the effect that the gift of 1073 was not intended to benefit the whole tarwad but only Narayani Amma and her children, that the said items were not therefore tarwad properties, that items 5 and 6 are the separate properties of the first defendant and item 7 is the separate property of the second defendant, that there was a partition in the tarwad in 1098 and that it was not, therefore, open to the plaintiff to claim, a second partition. It may be stated here that Narayani Amma had six children and that the original plaintiff, who died during the pendency of the suit in the trial court, was only her grant-daughter by one of her daughters. The additional second plaintiff was the daughter of the original plaintiff. The courts below concurrently found that plaint items 1 to 4 were tarwad properties, that items 5 and 6 were acquisitions made by the karnavan, the first defendant, with tarwad funds and that item 7 was the separate property of the second defendant. The trial court held that the partition of 1098 was not a partition binding on the tarwad as it effected a division of the properties only between the six children of Narayani Amma and did not take into account the shares of the other members of the tarwad i. e., Narayani Amma's grant-children by her daughters. The trial court held that the partition of 1098 was not a partition binding on the tarwad as it effected a division of the properties only between the six children of Narayani Amma and did not take into account the shares of the other members of the tarwad i. e., Narayani Amma's grant-children by her daughters. Consequently it gave the plaintiff a preliminary decree for partition of plaint items 1 to 6 and recovery of possession of her one-twentieth share with past and future mesne profits. Ex. C is a copy of the partition deed of 1098. The lower appellate court held that Ex. C partition was binding on the members of the tarwad as it was a bonafide family settlement effected by all the adult members of the tarwad, and dismissed the plaintiff's suit with costs in both courts. The additional second plaintiff is now dead. Her heirs have filed this second appeal against the decree of the lower appellate court dismissing the plaintiff's suit. 2. As the courts below have concurrently found that plaint items 1 to 6 belonged to the tarwad and item 7 was the separate property of the second defendant, the only question that was argued in this Court was whether Ex. C partition deed would be binding on the members of the tarwad or not. It was contended by the appellants' counsel that Ex. C partition deed was executed only by the six children of Narayani Amma, that shares have been allotted under that partition deed only to the executants thereof, that in making the allotments the shares due to the other members of the tarwad have not been taken into account at all, and that the other members of the tarwad have consequently been prejudiced by the partition. It was admitted at the time of hearing in this Court that the executants of Ex. C were the only adult members of the tarwad at the time of the execution of the partition deed and that all the other members of the tarwad were then minors. The learned District Judge's view that Ex. C was a bonafide settlement made by all the adult members of the tarwad appears to me to be correct. The law applicable to makkkathayam gifts made before 1088 was in a very unsettled state at the time of the execution of Ex. The learned District Judge's view that Ex. C was a bonafide settlement made by all the adult members of the tarwad appears to me to be correct. The law applicable to makkkathayam gifts made before 1088 was in a very unsettled state at the time of the execution of Ex. C. Section 17 of the Nayar Regulation of 1088 provided: . "Property obtained from the husband of father by the wife or widow and child or children by gift or inheritance, shall, unless in the case of gift a contrary intention appears from the instrument of gift, belong to the wife or widow and child or children in equal shares with right to individual partition". Reading this section by itself it would appear therefrom that only Narayani Amma and her six children were entitled to the properties gifted by Narayani Amma's husband and that the other members of the tarwad, i. e., the children of Narayani Amma's daughters, had no right to those properties. This view is supported by the interpretation given to section 17 of the Nair Regulation of 1088 in Chempakakutty v. Parameswaran, XXXV Travancore Law Reports 282. In that case it was held that the section applies also to gifts made before the date of the Regulation. But this view was dissented from in Kunjukunju Pillai v. Parameswaran, XXXIX Travancore Law Reports. The decision in the latter case was by a Full Bench. Two of the learned judges who took part in the case considered that section 17 Would not apply to gifts made before the enactment of the Nayar Regulation of 1088. In a subsequent Full Bench decision reported in XIII Travancore Law Journal 452, Raman v. Krishnan, the decision in Chempakakutty v. Parameswaran was over-ruled, and it was held that the right of division per capita conferred by section 17 cannot be claimed by a woman who was a party to, and the children to heir off-spring, of any marriage dissolved before the commencement of the Nayar regulation of 1088. The correctness of this decision was in its turn doubted in another Full Bench case, Narayanan v. Karthiyayani Pillai Thankachi, XLI Travancore Law Reports 285. The correctness of this decision was in its turn doubted in another Full Bench case, Narayanan v. Karthiyayani Pillai Thankachi, XLI Travancore Law Reports 285. Two of the learned judges who took part in that case held that Section 17 of the Nayar Regulation was applicable to gifts made before the date of the Regulation and that the continuation of the marriage union between the parents of the donees at the date of the Regulation is not necessary to render property antecedently gifted partiable. The conflicting views regarding Makkathayam gifts made before 1088 were settled only by the enactment of the Nayar Act of 1100 which provided that property acquired by gift or bequest from the father or husband before Regulation I of 1088 came into force shall, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, be treated as the tarwad property of the donees or divisees and of their thavazhees. Ex. C was executed in Thulam 1098 before the Nayar Regulation of 1100 was passed. It cannot be denied that at the time of the execution of Ex. C, on account of the conflicting decisions referred to above, there was room for a bonafide dispute between the members of the tarwad as to whether items 1 to 4 gifted by Narayani Amma's husband and items 5 and 6 acquired with the income of those properties belonged to the tarwad as a whole or only to Narayani Amma and her six children. From Ex. C it would appear that it was in settlement of this dispute that Ex. 0 was executed in 1098. The argument that Ex. C was executed not on behalf of the tarwad but only by the individual executants thereof in their individual capacity cannot be accepted. It is stated in Ex. C that the executants' belonged to the same thavazhi and that they were dividing their common properties. No doubt, the existence of the minors is not referred to in Ex. C and it is not stated therein that the document was being executed on behalf of the minors as well. But reading the documents as a whole, it is abundantly clear that it was being executed as a family settlement in full settlement of all outstanding disputes. No doubt, the existence of the minors is not referred to in Ex. C and it is not stated therein that the document was being executed on behalf of the minors as well. But reading the documents as a whole, it is abundantly clear that it was being executed as a family settlement in full settlement of all outstanding disputes. The shares allotted to the different members also do not appear to be equal and there is room to think that more properties were probably given to the two daughters of Narayani Amma than they would have been entitled to get under a strict per capita division between the executants of Ex. C. In Bhagavathy Amma v. Ramalekshmi, XIX T.L.J. 1233, a Full Bench of the Travancore High Court held that the adult members of a marumakkathayee tarwad are competent to divide the tarwad properties and execute a partition deed and that in the absence of fraud it is binding upon the minor members of the tarwad. This decision was followed in a subsequent case, Velu v. Velu, XXV T. L. J, 1183. In that case it was held that the law is well settled that the adult members of a marumakkathayam tarwad are competent to effect a partition of tarwad properties and that the partition deed so executed will be binding on the minor members of the tarwad unless the minors succeed in establishing that the transaction agreed to by all the adult members of the tarwad is vitiated by fraud and is demonstrably to the prejudice of the minors. There is no proof in this case that Ex 0 was vitiated by fraud or has caused prejudice to the minors. On the other hand, the circumstances show that it was a bonafide settlement whereby all the members of the tarwad have benefitted and a protracted and ruinous litigation was avoided. The thavazhies of Narayani Amma's daughters to which the minor members of the tarwad belonged benefited in as much as they obtained immediate possession of the properties allotted to them under Ex. C; and as I have said above, there are reasons to think that the properties allotted to those thavazhees were probably more than the properties allotted to the male members. 3. For the reasons stated above, the decree of the lower appellate court is confirmed and this second appeal is dismissed with costs. Dismissed.