DURGAPAL SINGH Vs. KUNWAR JAHAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the defendant against whom a decree for ejectment has been passed by the courts below. The connected appeal is by another defendant against whom in another suit a decree for ejectment has been passed by the courts below at the instance of the same plaintiffs. Since the same questions are involved in the two appeals they are being disposed of together.

(2.) The respondents, claiming to be tenants of the plots in dispute in the two suits, sued the appellants for ejectment on the ground that they had taken unlawful possession of the plots: The suits were filed in the court of a Munsif. They were contested by the appellants on various grounds but not on the ground that the learned Munsif had no jurisdiction to hear and determine them. The defence failed in both the suits with the result that they were decreed. Appeals were filed against both the decrees; the appellants pleaded for the first time in the lower appellate court that the learned Munsif had no jurisdiction to try the suits. The lower appellate court observed that they ought to have been instituted in a civil court and that the subsequent amendment to Section 180 U. P. Tenancy Act under which such suits should be instituted in a revenue court only had no retrospective effect and did not divest the learned Munsif of his jurisdiction to determine them. It dismissed the appeals and hence these Second Appeals. These appeals came up before our brother Upadhya, who finding that there was conflict of authority on the questions of law arising in them has referred them to a Bench for decision.

(3.) The main question before us is of jurisdiction. Under Section 9 of the Code of Civil Procedure a civil court has jurisdiction to try all suits of a civil nature excepting suits of which their cognizance is either expressly or impliedly barred. The suits in question were instituted in 1945 when the U. P. Tenancy Act No. XVII of 1939 was in force. Section 242 of it provided that: