MUNNI SINGH Vs. KUNTA DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD counsel for the petitioners and the counsel for the opposite parties.

(2.) IN the opinion of this Court the impugned order rejecting amendment in the plaint, confined to only addition of relief in the plaint, on a construction of statute in question, namely, Bihar Privileged Persons Homestead Tenancy Act, could not have been rejected. The bar created for maintaining a suit against an order or proceeding under the Bihar Privileged Persons Homestead Tenancy Act is itself qualified and limited in terms of Section 18 thereof which is reproduced hereinbelow: - "18. Order under this Act to be final. -The orders passed under this Act shall be final. Subject to the provisions of Section 21, all orders passed by the Collector in any proceeding under this Act shall be final, and no suit shall lie in any civil court to vary or set aside any such order except on the ground of fraud or want of jurisdiction."

(3.) FROM the very wordings of the aforementioned Section 18 of the Act, it would be clear that a suit would lie in any civil court to vary or set aside any order under the Act if the same is challenged on the ground of fraud or want of jurisdiction. In the present case the plaintiff in paragraphs 10 to 13 has made detailed pleading with regard to the proceedings under the Act and in that context having set out the facts in paragraph 10 that the defendant was not a privileged person as defined under the Act since he was having more than one acre of land he made the following averments in paragraph 13: - LOCAL LANGUANGE