TILOK CHAND Vs. MER CHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) One Tilok Chand filed an application under Order 33, Civil P. C., for permission to sue in forma pauperis against four persons, Mer Chand, Par manand, Sita Ram and Har Dayal, in respect of a debt alleged to have been due to him upon a promissory note made in his favour on 23-3-1949.

(2.) Admittedly both the applicant and opposite parties are displaced persons from West Pakistan, The debt in question also was, according to the application, advanced at Dera Ismail Khan in West Pakistan, The applicant came to India from West Pakistan as a result of the disturbances in connection with the setting up of the two Dominions and settled down at Agra. On 29-5-1950 he made the application out of which this revision has arisen under Order 33, claiming that he was a pauper and was unable to pay the court-fee payable on the plaint. This application came up for disposal before the learned Civil Judge Agra on 26-7-1952 when the learned Civil Judge rejected it on the preliminary ground that the application no longer lay in that Court.

(3.) When the application was made in May 1950 the Displaced Persons (Institution of Suits) Act, 1948 was in force, it is not contested that the applicant, as well as the opposite parties, are displaced persons within the meaning of Section 3 of this Act. Section 4 of the Act laid down that notwithstanding anything contained in Section 20, Civil P. C., 1908 or in any other law relating to the local limits of the jurisdiction of Courts, a displaced person may institute a suit in a Court within the local limits of whose jurisdiction he actually and voluntarily resides. This section also mentions other cases in which suits may be instituted in particular Courts but we are not concerned here with them. The applicant claimed that he was residing at Agra hence the Courts at that place had jurisdiction to entertain the application made by him.