DWARIKA NATH Vs. SHAM LAL GILLA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ORDER :- The plaintiff-petitioners filed a suit for the recovery of an amount of Rs. 432/- in the Court of learned Judge, Small Causes Court The amount was claimed as arrears of rent due to the plaintiff-petitioners in respect of the property which they claim to have inherited from Kanshi Nath Chowdhry. The suit was resisted. The learned Judge Small Causes Court, Srinagar, found that the case of the petitioners was covered by S.4 of the Succession Certificate Act. 1977 Bikrimi, and since the Succession Certificate had not been produced by the petitioner plaintiffs, the suit was not maintainable. He accordingly dismissed the suit without going into the merits of the case. This revision petition is directed against the judgement and decree of the learned Judge, Small Causes Court, Srinagar, dismissing the suit filed by the plaintiff petitioners.

(2.) Mr. Chowdhry, learned counsel for the petitioners, submits that in the first place no succession certificate, as envisaged by the Succession Certificate Act, 1977, was required to be produced by the petitioners-plaintiffs on the ground that the rent in general is excluded from the expression "debt" as defined in Sub-Sec. (2) of S.4 of the Succession Certificate Act, 1977. Bikrimi, and in the alternative, argued the learned counsel that it was not open to learned Judge, Small Causes Court, to dismiss the suit for non-production of the Succession Certificate and an opportunity should have been granted to the plaintiffs to produce the certificate and the suit should have been kept pending till production of the said certificate.

(3.) Section 4 of the Succession Certificate Act, 1977, reads as under :-