ALLA MALUA KURMI Vs. CIVIL JUDGE CLASS I

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS order will also govern the decisions of Miscellaneous Petitions Nos. 92 and 93 of 1952. These petitions are directed against the decisions of Shri S. N. Mishra, Civil Judge, Class I, Raipur, setting aside the decrees passed by the Nyaya Panchayat, Newra in three different suits preferred before it.

(2.) IT would appear from the copies of the plaints in these suits that the relief claimed by the plaintiffs in each of these suits was for damages for wrongful seizure and impounding of their cattle. The Nyaya Panchayat decreed the plaintiffs' claim in each of these suits but it referred in its judgment to Section 22, Cattle Trespass Act. Thereupon respondents 2 to 4 went up in revision on the criminal side before the Civil Judge, Class I, Raipur. The learned Judge held that the Nyaya Panchayat had no jurisdiction to entertain the suits on the civil side, that it had jurisdiction to entertain them under the Cattle Trespass Act, that the claim under that Act was barred by time and that he would treat the decisions of the Nyaya Panchayat as those given on the criminal side. In this view he entertained the criminal revisions and set aside the decrees passed by the Nyaya Panchayat.

(3.) WE would state only briefly that the view taken by the learned Judge that the claim is not triable by a Nyaya Panchayat because it does not fall under Section 86 (1), C. P. and Berar Panchayats Acts is not correct. That provision reads thus: 86 (1) The following suits shall be cognizable by a Nyaya Panchayat: