IN RE: PANDARASANNADHI OF DHARMAPURAM ADHINAM Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) S .R. No. 16033 is a plaint which has to be filed in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Tirunelveli. The main relief prayed for in the suit is one for injunction against defendants who have been impleaded thereto. C.M.P. No. 3912 of 1957 is an application filed in this Court to receive this plaint (S.R. No. 16033) and transmit the same to the Sub -Court, Tirunelveli, after passing an order for interlocutory injunction which is prayed for in C.M.P. No. 3913 of 1957. The matter came up before me for orders as to the maintainability of the petition C.M.P. No. 3812 of 1957 namely to receive the plaint.

(2.) MR . Champakesa Ayyangar, learned Counsel for the petitioner urged before me various grounds in support of the jurisdiction of this Court to receive this plaint. He, however, conceded that this jurisdiction had ultimately to turn upon the proper construction of Clause 13 of the Letters Patent.

(3.) AS Mr. Champakesa Ayyangar has raised this question once again I propose to deal with the exact scope of the High Court's powers in this regard. It is not necessary to consider the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court which was the predecessor of the present High Courts. Nor is it necessary to examine the scope of the jurisdiction conferred on Sudder Dewaney Adalut which exercised merely appellate jurisdiction over the Company's Courts in the mofussil. Section 9 of the High Courts Act, 1861, enabled: