SITAL DAS Vs. SANT RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is directed, against a judgment and decree of a Division Bench of the Punjab High Court, dated the 30th April 1952, by which the learned Judges reversed, on appeal, a decision of the Subordinate Judge, First Class, Jullundur dated the 31st May 1948, passed in Suit No. 131 of 1947.

(2.) In the plaint, as it was originally framed, two other persons were joined as co-plaintiffs along with Sital Das; one of them was Mahant Hira Das who purported to be the head of a Bairagi institution at Sahri, said to be the parent institution of the Thakardwara in dispute, and the other was Sadhu Ram Das, whose disciple Sital Das is and who claimed to belong to the same spiritual fraternity as Kishore Das.

(3.) On the 28th March 1946 the trial judge made an order to the effect that as plaintiff No. 1 was alleged to be the lawfully appointed Mahant, plaintiffs 2 and 3 could not claim to have simultaneously the same rights with him and the joinder of plaintiffs in this form was likely to create confusion and embarrass the trial of the suit; and the plaint therefore should be amended, and either the plaintiff No. 1 alone, or plaintiffs 2 and 3 together, should appear as claimants. In pursuance of this order, the plaint was amended and the names of plaintiffs 2 and 3 were deleted from the record. The amended plaint was filed on the 17th of April 1946.