STATE OF BIHAR Vs. RAM LAKHAN PRASAD SINHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application by the State of Bihar is directed against an order dated 31-5-1975 passed by the 3rd Additional Subordinate Judge, Gaya, rejecting the application of the petitioner under Order 33 Rule 9 of the Code of Civil Procedure (hereinafter to be referred to as the Code) for dispaupering the Opposite Party.

(2.) The Plaintiff Opposite Party had filed money Suit No. 170/5 of 1968/75 in the Court of the 1st Subordinate Judge, Gaya, for damages to the tune of Rupees 15,000.00 on account of certain alleged wrongful and malicious acts done by the officers of the State. The Opposite Party had also filed an application under Order 33, Rule 3 of the Code to prosecute that suit in forma pauperis on the ground that he had been declared insolvent by the court of the 1st Additional District Judge, Gaya. On 13-7-1964 the final order of discharge was passed in that insolvency proceeding. The trial Court allowed the prayer of the plaintiff opposite party and granted permission to him to sue in forma pauperis. It is curious to note that the Opposite Party also filed another suit, which was registered as money Suit No. 26 of 1969, again for damages to the tune of Rs. 25,000.00 against the State of Bihar for loss of his reputation and mental agony. In the latter, suit also the Opposite Party prayed for permission to sue in forma pauperis. But by an order dated 30-5-1970 the learned Subordinate Judge, 1st Court, Gaya, after a thorough enquiry, having found that the plaintiff Opposite Party had got sufficient means to pay the court-fees, rejected the pauper application. Against the aforesaid order rejecting the pauper application, the Opposite Party moved this Court in revision and that case was registered as Civil Revision No. 701 of 1970. The order passed by the learned Subordinate Judge was affirmed by thus Court in the Civil Revision. It transpires that in course of the enquiry proceeding in money Suit No. 26 of 1969 with regard to pauperism of the plaintiff opposite party the petitioner learnt that the Opposite Party was possessed of properties -- both movables and immovables -- including a double storeyed pucca house in mohalla Horha within the Gaya municipality. As such on 19-12-1969 an application was filed on behalf of the petitioner before the learned Subordinate Judge, 1st Court, Gaya, for dispau-pering the plaintiff Opposite Party and a list of properties owned and possessed by the Opposite party was also given in schedules A and B of the aforesaid petition. That application has been rejected, at already stated above by the impugned order.

(3.) The only ground on which the application has been rejected is that the petitioner had not adduced any oral evidence nor filed any document in support of the fact that the plaintiff had sufficient property to pay the court-fee. The learned Additional Subordinate Judge had also observed in his order that, although it was submitted on behalf of the petitioner that in the suit of 1969 the Opposite Party had not been declared as pauper, and it has been held even by the High Court that he had sufficient means and was in a position to pay the Court-fee, the judgment of this Court in the aforesaid Civil Revision had not been placed on the records of the case and that there was no documentary or oral proof of the fact that the properties set cut in Schedules A and B to the application under Order 33 Rule 9 of the Code belonged to the Opposite Party.