ABDUL SALAM ABDUL HAMID Vs. LAXMI SINGH TULARAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE non-applicant instituted a suit under Order 37 Civil Procedure Code (Summary procedure on Negotiable Instruments) against the petitioner in the court of the Additional District Judge Umaria. On notice being issued to him, the defendant-petitioner raised certain preliminary objections. One of them was that the trial Court had no jurisdiction to try the suit. That obiection has been rejected by the trial Court on the ground that it has inherent jurisdiction to try the suit and that the provisions contained in Section 7 (2) of the M. P. Civil Courts Act, 1958 are administrative in nature.

(2.) ORDER 37, Rule 1, Civil Procedure Code runs thus:

(3.) CLAUSE (b) can be construed in two ways according as the condition of specially empowering is read to qualify the expression "other Court" only or also to qualify "district Court". On the latter interpretation even a District Court will have no jurisdiction to proceed under Order 37 unless and until it is specially empowered in that behalf by the State Government. If the intention of the law was not to confer on the District Court the jurisdiction under Order 37, Civil Procedure Code, unless it was specially empowered in that behalf by the State Government, it was not at all necessary to name that Court separately. If the legislature did not want any court, including a District Court, to exercise jurisdiction under Order 37, unless it was specially empowered in that behalf by the State Government, Clause (b)would have read like this: "any Court specially empowered in this behalf by the State government. " the mention of the District Court separately can have no other meaning than the statutory conferment of the jurisdiction on it under Order 37. not depending upon any such special empowering. It seems to me undoubted that the word "or" in clause (b) is disjunctive. It completely separates two things. "district Court": "other Court specially empowered in this behalf by the State Government. " On this analysis, it must be held that a District Court has statutory jurisdiction under order 37, Rule 1, Civil Procedure Code, and it does not depend upon a special empowering in that behalf by the State Government.