IN RE: GAZULA ANANDAPPA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE application before the Court is for an order directing an appeal which lies to the District Court of Anantapur to be received by this Court and transmitted to the District Court on its reopening after the summer vacation, the object being to obtain an interim order from this Court. The application is in accordance with a practice which existed in this Court from the year 1933 until last year. The practice was based on an unreported judgment of Ramesam, J. (C.M. Ps. Nos. 2774 and 2840 of 1933). In an order dated the 9th June, 1944, also unreported (C.M.P. No. 2513 of 1944) Byers, J., disagreed with the judgment of Ramesam, J., and held that an appeal which lay to a Court subordinate to this Court could not be received by this Court on the ground that the proper Court was closed for the vacation. The present application has been placed before this Bench in order that the conflict may be decided.

(2.) SECTION 13 of the Madars Civil Courts Act, 1873, states that regular or special appeals shall, when such appeals are allowed by law, lie from the decrees and orders of a District Court to the High Court and that appeals from the decrees and orders of Subordinate Judges and District Munsiffs shall, when they are allowed by law, lie to the District Court, except when the amount or value of the subject -matter of the suit exceeds rupees five thousand, in which case the appeal shall lie to the High Court, provided that whenever a Subordinate Judge's Court is established in a District at a place remote from the station of the District Court, the High Court may, with the previous sanction of the Provincial Government, direct that appeals from the decrees or orders of the District Munsiffs within the local limits of the jurisdiction of the Subordinate Judge be preferred in the Court of the latter.

(3.) THE Madras Civil Courts Act in effect prohibits an appeal of the nature of the one now sought to be filed in this Court from being filed here. It expressly provides that it shall be filed in the District Court. The appellate Court having jurisdiction in this matter is the District Court of Anantapur and the appeal is in fact headed " In the Court of the District Judge, Anantapur." The petitioner wants this Court to accept it and pass an interim order as he cannot get an interim order from the District Judge on account of the District Court being closed.