SOWKABAI PANDHARINATH RAJAPURKAR Vs. SIR TUKOJIRAO HOLKAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the judgment of Mr. Justice Wadia on certain issues which were framed on the footing that they were preliminary issues, The position of the action is this: The plaint was filed on February 10, 1927, and by it the plaintiff alleges that the defendant, who issued by name and described as " formerly of Indore ", was up to the year 1926 the Ruling Chief of the Indore State, and then it is alleged that prior to 1926 he committed various wrongful acts against the plaintiff, in particular it is alleged that the plaintiff is the owner of a house in Bombay and that the defendant wrongfully took possession of the house and its contents and also ornaments of considerable value belonging to the plaintiff and remained in possession for eleven years; and then it is alleged that the defendant wrongfully imprisoned the plaintiff, and for those various matters damages are claimed.

(2.) The defendant entered an appearance and took various steps in the action, which I need not go into in detail, On July 18, 1927, the defendant put in a preliminary written statement, in which he claimed that he was not liable to be sued having regard to the fact that at the material dates he was the Ruling Chief of the Indore State. Subsequently he was directed to put in a further written statement, and on October 25, 1928, he put in a supplemental written statement dealing with the allegations of fact contained in the plaint and denying, I think, almost all the material allegations made against him in the plaint. In particular he stated that the house and the contents of the house and the ornaments, which he was alleged to have taken, were in fact not the plaintiff's property at all, but that they were the property of one Tatyasaheb Holkar, who was a cousin of the defendant and whose mistress the plaintiff was, as she alleges in the plaint.

(3.) The subsequent history of the matter appears from an interlocutory judgment which Mr. Justice Wadia gave on October 6, 1930. From that judgment it appears that on February 25,1929, the then Chamber Judge had directed a preliminary issue in these terms, viz.:- Whether it being alleged by the plaintiff that the acts complained of by her and in respect of which reliefs are sought were done by the defendant Whilst he was the Ruling Chief of the Indore State, the suit is maintainable against the defendant, and if not, whether the suit should be dismissed ?