HARBANS DEO RAI Vs. RAJ KUMAR RAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This second appeal arose under the following circumstances: The respondent Rajkumar Ram brought a suit; for recovery of a small sum of money, viz. Rs. 185, on foot of a simple bond alleged to have been executed by the appellant Harbans Deo Rai. To the suit, besides the prayer for recovery of the sum of Rs. 185, the plaintiff added a prayer for an injunction restraining the defendant from disposing of his immovable property on the ground that he was likely to dispose of the property on hearing of the suit. The suit was not defended. It was decreed so far as the prayer for recovery of money went, but was dismissed as regards the prayer for injunction. The prayer for injunction was obviously a dodge to oust the jurisdiction of the Court of Small Causes, or to give a right of appeal to the plaintiff if the suit was decided against him. In any case by no conceivable means could the plaintiff have ever thought of there being a chance of his getting an injunction against the defendant restraining him from transferring his immovable property in the very suit in which he claimed the money.

(2.) The decree was put into execution and it was transferred for execution to the Court of the Munsif of Deoria. The Court which passed the decree was the Munsif of Gorakhpur.

(3.) In the Court of the Munsif of Gorakhpur an objection was filed by the judgment-debtor, the present appellant Harbans Deo Rai, objecting to the execution on the ground that it was barred by limitation. The Munsif held that the execution was not barred by time. Ignoring this judgment the judgment debtor went before the Munsif at Deoria and raised the same plea of limitation. The Munsif of Deoria held that the application for execution was barred by time. The decree-holder thereupon appealed to the learned District Judge of Gorakhpur, and the Judge in an elaborate judgment came to the conclusion that the judgment of the Munsif of Gorakhpur to the effect that the execution was time barred was an effective judgment and operated as res judicata and the Munsif of Deoria was therefore precluded from coming to a contrary conclusion.