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23. At the forefront, of course, has come the question as to the identity of the parties in the different suits. As will appear from paragraph 3 of the judgment (Ex. 255) pronounced by the trial court on September 15, 1919 in the interpleader suit (O. S. No. 94 of 1088) that suit was, with the permission of the court, converted into a representative action on behalf of the Jacobite Syrian Christian population of Malabar. Therefore the decision in that interpleader suit (O. S. No. 94 of 1088) must be binding on all members of the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Christian community. In paragraphs 6, 9 and 32 of the plaint in the present suit the plaintiffs who represent the interests of defendants 4 to 6 in the interpleader suit (O. S. No. 94 of 1088) themselves rely on the decision in that interpleader suit as operating as res judicata as between the parties to the present suit on questions referred to in those paragraphs. Indeed in paragraph 55 of the grounds of appeal filed by the plaintiffs in the present suit the contention is put forward that the trial court should have held, inter alia, that Ex. 256 operated as res judicata in respect of the points decided in that case. It is also to be remembered that the first plaintiff in the present suit was defendant 42 in that interpleader suit and the second defendant in the present suit was the second defendant in that interpleader suit. In these circumstances there does not appear to us any difficulty as to parties in applying the principle of res judicata to the matters in issue in this suit, if the other conditions for its application are satisfied.

It must, therefore, be held that the contentions put forward in paragraphs 19 to 26 of the plaint in the present suit on which issues Nos. 14, 15, 16 and 17 have been raised were directly and substantially in issue in the interpleader suit (O. S. 94 of 1088) and had been decided by the Travancore High Court on review in favour of Mar Geevarghese Dionysius and his two co- trustee (defendants 1 to 3) and against defendants 4 to 6. In short the question whether Mar Geevarghese Dionysius and his two co-trustees (defendants 1 to 3) had become heretics or aliens or had gone out of the Church and, therefore, were not qualified for acting as trustees was in issue in the interpleader suit (O, S. No. 94 of 1088) and it was absolutely necessary to decide such issue. That judgment decided that neither (a) the repudiation of Abdulla II, nor (b) acceptance of Abdul Messiah who had ceased to be a Patriarch, nor (c) acceptance of the Catholicate with powers as hereinbefore mentioned, nor (d) the reduction of the power of the Patriarch to a vanishing point, 'ipso facto' constituted a heresy or amounted to voluntary separation by setting up a new Church and that being the position those contentions cannot be re-agitated in the present suit.

36. Re. (ii b) : This ground raises the question of the Patriarch's right to Ressissa. Ressissa is a voluntary and not a compulsory contribution made by the parishioners. Ex. F. O., which records the proceedings of the Mulunthuruthu Synod held on June 27, 1876, refers to a resolution providing, 'inter alia', that the committee, that is to say, the Committee of the Malankara Association, will be responsible to collect and send the Ressissa due to His Holiness the Patriarch. This may suggest that some Ressissa was due to the Patriarch. But in paragraph 218 of Ex. DY which is the judgment pronounced by the Travancore Royal Court of Final Appeal on July 12, 1889, it is stated that no. satisfactory evidence had been adduced before the court as to the payment of Ressissa to the Patriarch by the committee in Malankara that the evidence on record was very meagre and inconclusive and that it was open to doubt whether it was payable to the Metropolitans in this country or to the Patriarch in a foreign country. Ex. 86, which records the proceedings of the meeting of the Malankara Association held on September 7, 1911, refers to a resolution forbidding maintaining any connection with Patriarch Abdulla II and presumably in consequence of this resolution the payment of the Ressissa to the Patriarch was stopped. The interpleader suit (O. S. No. 94 of 1088) was filed in 1913. If non-payment of Ressissa could be made a ground of attack, it should have been taken in that suit and that not having been, done, it cannot now be put forward according to the principles of constructive 'res judicata'. Besides, the provisions of Paragraph 115 of the impugned constitution (Ex. A. M.) require every Vicar in every parish church to collect only two chukrums from every male member who has completed 21 years of age and to send it to the Catholicos. This does not forbid the payment of Ressissa to the Patriarch, if any be due to him and if any parishioner is inclined to pay anything to the Patriarch who is declared in Cl. (1) of this very constitution to be the supreme head of the Orthodox Syrian Church. In any case, according to the canons relied upon by each of the parties, namely, Ex. B. P. - Ex, 18 of O. S. No. 94 of 1088 produced by the plaintiffs or Ex. 26 - Ex. A in O. S. No. 94 of 1088 insisted upon by the defendants, the non-payment of Ressissa does not entail heresy. Even if the question involved in ground (ii b) is not covered by the previous decision in the interpleader suit (O. S. No. 94 of 1088) the question has, on the foregoing grounds, to be decided against the plaintiff-respondent.

37. Re. (iii) : This is really not a charge but a statement of the conclusion which the plaintiff-respondent desires to be drawn from the other charges formulated above. Accordingly the point has not been pressed before us and nothing further need be said about it.

38. Re. (iv) : An attempt is made by learned counsel for the respondents to make out that what was referred to in the interpleader suit (O. S. No. 94 of 1088) was the ordination of a Catholicos whereas in the present suit reference is made to the establishment of a Catholicate and further that in any case the Catholicate of the East referred to in the plaint in the present suit is an institution quite different from the Catholicate which was the subject-matter of discussion in the interpleader suit (O. S. No. 94 of 1088.). We do not think there is any substance whatever in this contention. A reference to paragraphs 30 and 31 of the written statement clearly indicates that the institution of Catholicate, which is relied upon by the defendants, is no. other than the Catholicate established in Malabar in 1088 by Patriarch Abdul Messiah. This position is accepted by the plaintiffs themselves in their grounds of appeal Nos. 13, 15, 17, 18 and 27 to the High Court of Travancore from the decision of the District Judge of Kottayam in this case. Issues Nos. 14 and 15 as well as the judgment of the District Judge in this case also indicate that the subject-matter of this part of the controversy centred round the Catholicate which had been established by Abdul Messiah in the year 1088. Before the argument advanced before us there never was a case that the impugned constitution (Ex. A. M.) had established a Catholicate of the East. The purported distinction sought to be drawn between the ordination of Catholicos and the establishment of a Catholicate and a Catholicate established by Abdul Messiah in 1088 and the Catholicate of the East created by the impugned constitution (Ex. A. M.) and which is sought to be founded upon as a new cause of action in the present suit, appears to us to be a purely fanciful afterthought and is totally untenable.