SHANMUKA NADAN 1 TO 5 MINORS BY THEIR MOTHER AND GUARDIAN 6TH APPT Vs. ARUNACHALA CHETTY (THROUGH HIS AGENT SHANMUGAVELAYUDHAM PILLAI )

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The decision under appeal was passed in a suit brought for partition by four minors against the 1 defendant, their father, certain females whose positions it is not necessary to specify, and the 7 to 18 defendants, persons who held money decrees, some of them against the 1 defendant alone, others against the 1 defendant and the plaintiffs, all obtained on debts incurred by the 1 defendant.

(2.) The decision of the lower Court is in terms that the suit is bad for misjoinder of causes of action and that defendants 7 to 18 are not proper parties. There is nothing else. The lower Court does not say that it removes them from the record; it does not say that the suit is dismissed as against them. But it is agreed before us and from the tenor of the remainder of the order it is clear, that under Order I, Rule 10 the names of these defendants were struck out, as being improperly joined.

(3.) It is objected that no appeal lies against such a decision and certainly none is provided directly in the Code and as the lower Court's decision, understood in the manner in which we understand it, is not a decree, and is not a conclusive determination of the rights of the parties with regard to any of the matters in controversy and does not come within the definition of decree in Section 2(2), there can be no appeal against it directly. In these circumstances the appeal as such must fail.