RAM KEWAL AND OTHERS Vs. THAKUR PRASAD PANDEY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants filed a suit in the Court of the Munsif of Khalilabad claiming Rs. 61- as the price of certain mangoes which had been wrongfully and stealthily taken from a tree belonging to them. The suit was filed on the 21st of July 1949. It was contested on the ground that the plaintiffs had nothing to do with the tree whose fruits were in dispute; that the tree belonged to the defendants and that they had rightfully taken the fruits. The trial court rejected the defendant's contention and accepting the plaintiff's claim decreed the suit. The defendants went up in appeal to the Civil Judge and there for the first time raised a plea that the Panchayat Raj Act having come into force in 1947 the Munsif had no jurisdiction to try the suit as it was cognizable by the Panchayati Adalat. This plea found favour with the learned Civil Judge. He set aside the decree of the trial court and remanded the case to it so that it may be transferred to the Panchayati Adalat for retrial. Against that order the plaintiffs preferred a first appeal to this Court. It came up for decision before Mr. Justice V. Bhargava. Two contentions were pressed on behalf of the appellants. The first was that the suit was of a nature which was not cognizable by a Panchayati Adalat and that it did not fall under any of the clauses of sub-sec. (1) of Sec. 64 of the Panchayat Raj Act of 1947. The second contention was that in any case no Panchayati Adalat had been constituted before the date on which the suit was filed for the village in which the cause of action for the suit had arisen and on that account the suit could not be filed in any Panchayati Adalat. The civil court had, therefore, jurisdiction to entertain the suit. The first contention was rejected by the learned Judge as he was of opinion that on the allegations made by the plaintiffs themselves the suit fell under clause (c) to sub-sec. (1) of Sec. 64 of the Panchayat Raj Act. In respect of the second contention, however, the learned Judge felt that conflicting views had been taken by some learned Judges of this Court and that the conflict should be resolved. He, therefore, referred the following question for decision to a Division Bench. That is how the case has come before us. The Question is.

(2.) Under the Panchayat Raj Act as it stood on the date when the suit in hand was filed in the Munsif's Court, Sec. 55 provided:

(3.) Sec. 52 of the Act laid down: