AHAMMAD PILLAI Vs. SUBAIDA BEEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Respondent herein filed a plaint in the court below against the revision petitioner herein on 21-12-1984. Plaint shows her age as 19 years. Defendant filed I. A. 3024/1985 under O.32 R.2 of the Code of Civil Procedure (for short 'the Code') praying that the suit may be taken off the file. Application was opposed by the plaintiff. Plaintiff filed I. A. 3068/1985 seeking appointment of a next friend for her. Learned Munsiff allowed the plaintiff's application and dismissed the defendant's application. Dismissal of the defendant's application is challenged in this revision. It is not submitted that the order passed in the plaintiff's application has been challenged in revision.

(2.) So far as the present plaintiff is concerned, there is no dispute that she attains majority only on the completion of 18 years. When she filed the plaint, she gave her age as 19 years. Accordingly, the plaint was filed without intervention of a next friend and without showing any person as next friend. In the defendant's application he stated that plaintiff was born on 4-5-1967. Plaintiff's mother, who later filed an affidavit as a next friend, admitted the correction of the date of birth furnished by the defendant. Plaint was filed on 21-12-1984. That being so, plaintiff was aged only 17 years, 7 months and seventeen days on the date of the plaint and hence a minor. Plaintiff sought to correct the defect by introducing her mother as next friend. According to learned counsel for the revision petitioner, a suit instituted by a minor in this manner is a nullity and the defect is incurable.

(3.) O.32 of the Code deals with suits by or against minors and persons of unsound mind. R.1 states that every suit by a minor shall be instituted in his name by a person who in such suit shall be called the next friend of the minor R.2 reads thus: