MANOHAR RAMCHANDRA HINGE Vs. COLLECTOR OF NASIK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The only question involved in this appeal is whether the Court below was right in its view that the suit was governed by the Dekkhan Agriculturists Relief Act on the footing that the plaintiff is an agriculturist. Upon the title of the suit itself it is brought by " The Collector of Nasik District representing the Court of Wards for the estate of Gopalrao Shivdevrao Rajebahadur."

(2.) Mr. Kelkar s first argument is that the real plaintiff is the Court of Wards, and it is that Court s status which should be regarded, and not the status of Gopalrao Shivdevrao. It is, says the learned pleader, the same case as if a person being himself an agriculturist assigned his property to a non-agriculturist stranger. The assignee could not claim the benefit of the special Act. It appears to us, however, that the Court of Wards bears no resemblance to the assignee in the case put. As appears quite clear from the Court of Wards Act (Bom. Act I of 1905) passim, and especially from Sections 2, 4 and 32 thereof, the property remains the property of the ward, and the only manner in which the Court of Wards intervenes is to assume the superintendence of it.

(3.) The reason why this suit is brought in the name of the Court of Wards is explained by Section 32 of the Act which lays down that in such a case as this " the Court of Wards having the superintendence of the Government ward s property, shall be named as the next friend or guardian for the suit." In other words the ward being temporarily disabled from suing on his own behalf sues through the Court of Wards. But the plaintiff is none the less the ward Gopalrao Shivdevrao, and it is his status, therefore, which alone has to be considered.