BALWANT RAI Vs. GIAN SINGH (LT )

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN a suit for ejectment pending before the Sub -Judge Jammu, the petitioner who was cited as a witness in the case, moved an application that he be added as a party to the suit inasmuch as he was the owner of the property in dispute, from which the defendants were sought to be ejected by the plaintiffs. The petitioner claimed ownership rights in the said property. The learned Sub -Judge dismissed the application as in his view the petitioner was neither a necessary party nor a proper party and could not, therefore, be impleaded in the suit. Aggrieved by this order, the petitioner has come up in revision before this Court.

(2.) APPEARING for the petitioner Mr. R. P. Sethi has canvassed the proposition that as the defendants in the suit have raised question of title and have pleaded that they are the owners of the property and that the plaintiffs -landlords could not, therefore, eject them from the suit premises, and further that as there was an issue framed by the trial court in regard to this matter, it was desirable and proper that the petitioner who claims the property on his own account by virtue of his ownership rights be ordered to be made a party to the suit proceedings. He has submitted that in case the petitioner is not made a party and is driven to file a separate suit (which he has already done) the possibility of two conflicting judgments in the two suits, cannot be ruled out.

(3.) I am afraid the contention is not well founded. The principle is well recognized that a suit for ejectment cannot be converted into a suit for title and, therefore, the petitioner can have no locus standi to ask the court that he be impleaded as a party because he is the owner of the property. True, that the defendants have set up title to the property in themselves and the court has raised and issue with regard to that, but that is a matter between the plaintiff -landlords and the defendant -tenants. Surely, a stranger cannot be heard to say that because his interests stand jeopardised on account of the suit for ejectment, therefore, he be made a party. His remedy lies by way of instituting a separate suit which it is conceded before me, has already been instituted by him. There is no apprehension of any conflict of judgments in the two cases inasmuch as the judgment that will be given in the present suit, can have no binding effect upon the petitioner because he is not a party to the suit. Precisely the same question arose in a case reported in 1976 J&K Law Reporter, 341, and A.I.R. 1958 J&K, 39. In the former case, which was decided by me, I observed that the question of impleadment of a party is to be decided upon the touch stone of Order 1, Rule 10 which provides that only a necessary or proper party may be impleaded. The mere interest of a party in the fruits of litigation cannot be held to be a true test of his being impleaded as a party". That was a suit for the recovery of arrears of rent brought by the landlord against the tenant, in which one Mukund Lal had intervened and had sought impleadment under Order 1, Rule 10 C.P.C. In AIR 1958 Supra, a Division Bench of this Court observed that in a rent suit the third party claiming to be owner of the property could not be made a party as it would convert a simple suit for arrears of rent into one for determination of title to the property in respect of which the rent is claimed. Again in 1975 JKLR, 174, the view has been taken that a stranger claiming property who may eventually be affected by the judgment, cannot be made a party. This could not be a cogent ground for making him a party. I am also fortified in this view of mine, by the observations made in AIR 1977 Orissa, 183, which was also a suit for ejectment and in which a third person claimed to be added as a defendant on the ground that he had title to the suit property. The stranger had already filed another suit in the Civil Court claiming title to the property (just as in the present case). The learned Judge deciding the case overruled the contention of the stranger that he was a proper or necessary party. It is unnecessary to multiply the authorities on this proposition of law.