MADANLAL Vs. KISHANMAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a defendant's second appeal in the matter of costs only.

(2.) IT is unnecessary to narrate the facts of the case in any detail. The respondent-plaintiffs filed a suit in the court of the Munsiff, City Jodhpur, against appellant-defendant for arrears of rent and ejectment in respect of a shop. The trial court dismissed the suit for ejectment but partially decreed it so far as arrears of rent were concerned. An appeal was taken by the plaintiffs from that decree to the court of the District Judge, Jodhpur, who dismissed it by his judgment dated 14th December, 1951. The contention of learned counsel for the appellant is that the lower appellate court did not at all exercise its discretion as regards the award of costs although it had dismissed the plaintiff's appeal, and that as the appeal had been decided in his favour, the lower court's silence in the matter of costs was quite wrong and arbitrary. Learned counsel for respondent No. 1 has brought to my notice, however, that the lower appellate court had in fact applied its mind to the question of costs and had stated even in its order-sheet dated 14th of December, 1951, that the appeal be dismissed with costs although it was correct that neither the judgment nor the decree contained any direction in that respect.