MARTHANDAN NADAR NARAYANAN NADAR Vs. PERUMAKUTTY PERUMAKUTTY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision arises from a final order as to dispute of possession over seventeen items of properties of one Narayanan Marthandan who died in 1088. He left no sons and the two daughters through his second wife Valli Neeli predeceased the latter. The dispute is between the donees from the widow and those claiming under them on the one hand and the immediate reversioner of Marthandan on the other. The widow herself died in 1101. The preliminary order was passed so early as 9-9-1113 and this revision is the third of its kind in the case, the two previous final orders of 6-6-1117 and 22-2-1951 having been vacated respectively in Crl. Revision Petitions 434 and 454 of 1117 and Crl. Revision Petition 94 of 1951. It is unnecessary for the present purpose to go into the reasons why the previous orders happened to be set aside. It would here suffice to say that there is now a well considered order finding possession of the disputed properties to have been with the petitioners before the lower court on the date of the preliminary order. I am unable to persuade myself to agree with the learned counsel for the revision petitioner that the directions in the previous revision orders have not been complied with in the present order.

(2.) The learned Magistrate has dealt with the possession of the various , items involved in the dispute after classifying them into different convenient groups and on each item or group, as the case may be, there is definite and unequivocal finding that the petitioners before the lower court were in possession on the relevant date. Though the learned counsel argued the matter before me very elaborately and urged for a liberal exercise of this Court's jurisdiction in revisions arising from orders passed under Chapter XII of the Criminal Procedure Code I do not think this to be a fit case to discuss the question as nothing more than the appreciation of evidence, oral and documentary is involved here. It is my emphatic view that the revisional jurisdiction cannot be extended to such cases. As Sir George Rankin C. J., put in in AIR 1981 Cal. 619 not to keep this limitation in view will be for the High Court to take upon itself the task of doing again the work of all the Magistrates in the whole of the State.

(3.) There is nothing to show that there has been any improper assumption of jurisdiction by the lower court or any misdirection on a point of law which has caused prejudice to one side or the other. The first order was one keeping the properties under attachment and directing the parties to the Civil Court for adjudication as to their respective rights. That order was cancelled and in the two subsequent orders the lower court found possession with the petitioners. It is idle to ask this Court now to restore the original order of 1117. Nor is it "the right of a party to claim that the court should investigate the facts merely on the allegation that there should be another trial because he has not succeeded before the lower Court": per Sir George Rankin, C. J., in the above case.