APPANNAN Vs. V.N. SUBBANNA GOUNDAN AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition by one Appanna Mudaliar against the orders of the Additional District Judge, Coimbatore, in I.A. No. 358 of 1956, in C.M.A. No. 4 of 1955 on his file, impleading one Subbanna Goundar, the petitioner in that interlocutory application, as the fourth respondent in the Civil Miscellaneous Appeal. That was a Civil Miscellaneous Appeal filed by this petitioner, who had been adjudicated an insolvent in I.P. No. 40 of 1952, for quashing that order of adjudication. One T. G. Ayyaswami Mudaliar had filed the insolvency petition for adjudicating the petitioner insolvent, alleging that he owed him some Rs. 3,000 and odd, and that the insolvent owed diverse other sums to diverse other creditors, and was unable to pay his creditors, and had committed acts of insolvency within three months before the filing of the petition. The resourceful insolvent -petitioner promptly deposited the amount of Rs. 3,125 -10 -0 claimed by Ayyasami as due to him. Ayyaswami gladly withdrew that amount and ceased to take any interest in the insolvency petition thereafter. But Papammal and Mangalammal, two persons claiming to be creditors in respect of Rs. 1,000 each put in a petition to add themselves as petitioning creditors in the insolvency petition, since Ayyasami, the first petitioning creditor, had not been diligent in prosecuting the insolvency petition. They alleged that the petitioner -insolvent had alienated all his properties in favour of a Mahommedan lady and her daughter on 15th December, 1951, before the filing of the insolvency petition, for Rs. 9,000. They were added as -petitioning creditors 2 and 3, and the petitioner was adjudicated an insolvent. He then filed the Civil Miscellaneous Appeal.

(2.) THE petitioner -insolvent had filed a Second Appeal against the decree in O.S. No. 80 of 1949 under which alone Papammal and Mangalammal became creditors of his, and that appeal was allowed, and a fresh account was directed to be taken in respect of the partnership carried on by the insolvent and the petitioning creditors 2 and 3. Fearing that in such fresh taking of accounts the debts of Papammal may disappear, and they may cease to be creditors, or that the insolvent may deposit the amount found due to them on such fresh taking of accounts and get rid of the insolvency, Subbanna Goundar, who claimed to be a creditor for more than Rs. 30,000 regarding the insolvent under two decrees in O.S. Nos. 473 of 1950 and 446 of 1951 on the file of the Sub Court, Coimbatore, wanted to be added as a. respondent in the Civil Miscellaneous Appeal in order to fight out the request of the petitioner -insolvent for the cancellation of the adjudication. His application was stoutly opposed by the insolvent, but was granted by the learned Additional District Judge on the ground that, if his application was not granted and the insolvency petition was dismissed, because of the disappearance or settlement of the comparatively small debts due to Papammal and Mangalammal, gross injustice would result as in a case decided by Mr. Basheer Ahmed Sayeed, J., in Chandramoleswaran v. Krishnaswami Naidu, (1952) 2 M.L.J. 148. So he allowed Subbanna Goundar's application and added him as the fourth respondent in the Civil Miscellaneous Appeal. Hence this Civil Revision Petition.

(3.) THEN Mr. Naidu urged that the ruling in In re Maund v. Ex Parte Maund, L.R. (1895) 1 Q.B. 194, will apply and that the Court had no power to amend an insolvency petition by adding, as petitioners, after three months had elapsed from the date of bankruptcy upon which the petition was founded, the creditors whose debts were other than those in respect of which the petition was presented. This ruling will not help him as the petition presented by Ayyasami must be held to enure for the benefit of all the creditors of the petitioner on that date, and, indeed, the allegation in it was that the petitioner, by alienating all his properties, had made it impossible for all his creditors to recover their dues. So, even Subbanna Goundar's debt, if it existed on the date of the filing of the insolvency petition, as is conceded by Mr. Naidu, will be a debt in respect of which the insolvency petition by Ayyasami was presented. In the end, therefore, I see no reason whatever to interfere with the order passed by the learned Additional District Judge. It is confirmed, and this Civil Revision Petition is dismissed, but, in the circumstances without costs.