KALAHASTI VEERAMMA Vs. PRATTIPATI LAKSHMAYYA AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE suit with which we are concerned was one for possession and mesne profits. The trial was a lengthy one. 18 witnesses were examined and a very large number of documents filed. The District Munsiff who pronounced the judgment was not the Munsiff who recorded the evidence; and after hearing the arguments he wrote a very long judgment extending to more than 11 -1/2 pages. Although 9 issues were framed, the learned District Munsiff did not discuss separately under the heading of the individual issues the evidence bearing on each issue. His long judgment discusses from paragraph 14 the various questions that arose in the suit and at the very end he recorded his findings on the several issues without giving any summary of the evidence relating to the various issues. In view of these defects in the judgment, the learned Subordinate Judge in appeal did not discuss the evidence at all and in a few brief paragraphs disposed of the appeal by saying that the District Munsiff did not give any reasons for arriving at his conclusions. He considered that the judgment contravened the provisions of Order 20, Rule 5 of the Civil Procedure Code and remanded the suit for fresh disposal.

(2.) THE type of judgment complained of by the learned Subordinate Judge is no doubt open to serious criticism. Unfortunately, many judicial officers have a habit of clubbing together all or most of the issues and writing a diffuse judgment, without bringing their minds to bear on the particular matters that have to be decided under each issue, and then giving their conclusions on the several issues at the end of the judgment. The objection to that form of judgment is not so much that it contravenes the provisions of Order 20, Rule 5 of the Code, which does not seem to require anything more than that reasons should be given for the findings under the individual issues, but rather that it tends to loose thinking; with the result that the Judge does not keep before his mind the essential points to be con -sidered; so that the judgment not only loses clarity, but often leads to wrong conclusions, which would have been avoided if the Judge had discussed the various issues separately. Having said this, however, I do not find the judgment under consideration so bad that it was impossible for the appellate Court to appreciae what the findings of the trial Court were. In almost every paragraph a point which had to be determined was considered and the learned Munsiff's findings given. The appellate Court would have therefore had no difficulty, if it had taken some trouble to ascertain what the findings of the District Munsiff were on the various points that had to be considered in the suit and in the appeal - -and pre -sumably the learned Counsel would have drawn its attention to the findings and the reasons given for them.

(3.) ORIGINALLY , Order 41, Rule 23 of the Code was not as wide as it is now; and provided for a remand only where the suit had been disposed of on a preliminary point; but under the present rule the appellate Court can also remand the suit, if in reversing or setting aside the decree, it considers it necessary in the interests of justice to do so. But it cannot do so without considering the facts. It is only where the appellate Court finds it necessary to reverse or set aside the decree that it is entitled to remand the suit. It is not necessary in this case to go so far as to say that if the judgment of the trial Court is so completely incomprehensible as to be of no value at all, the appellate Court has no jurisdiction to order the trial Court to write another judgment; but the judgment in this case, as already pointed out, does contain the findings on all the material questions of fact and law.