PARBHU AND ORS. Vs. GIRDHARI AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE two questions for consideration before this Full Bench are

(2.) THERE are 36 Plaintiffs and 145 Defendants in the suit, in which these questions have arisen, who are proprietors of the Shamilat Abadi Land in dispute of Thullas Pachhmasian and Khurara in village Ismaila 11 Biswas. The detailed description of the land is given in paragraph 2 of the plaint. The Plaintiffs aver that Defendants 1 to 56 and ancestors of Defendants 57 to 93 and 104 to 106 instituted a suit sometime in 1949 against Defendants 94 to 98 and ancestors of Defendants 99 to 103 etc. for possession by partition of the land, the subject -matter of dispute in the present litigation. The Plaintiffs then definitely. further aver that those Defendants instead of making all the co -sharers parties to that previous suit obtained a wrong and collusive preliminary decree on February 20, 1950, and final decree on June 29, 1954, by just making Defendants 94 and 95 and one Chandgi deceased, ancestor of Defendants 99 to 101 etc. as representatives of all the remaining co -sharers of the land according to Order I, Rule 8 of the Code of Civil Procedure. This is stated in paragraph 3, and in paragraph 4 the grounds of attack are given in so far as the previous decrees are concerned. Out of those grounds the first two alone are material for the present purpose. Those two grounds are:

(3.) THERE is a preliminary issue on the question of the valuation for the purposes of jurisdiction and court -fee and the learned trial Judge having found that the value of the land is Rs. 7,425 -1 -6, has taken that to be the value for the purposes of Me court -fee under Section 7(iv)(c) of the said Act, when read with second proviso, added by the Punjab amendment, demanding from the Plaintiffs ad valorem court -fee on that amount. The Plaintiffs having failed to pay the court -fee so demanded, the learned trial Judge proceeded to reject their plant under Order 7, Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure.