RANI OF TUNI Vs. MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE (DEAD)

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition asking us to direct the Agent to the Governor, Vizagapatam, to review his proceedings dismissing, as inadmissible, an appeal from a decision of the Assistant Agent.

(2.) A preliminary objection has been taken to our hearing the petition, that it does not lie, because the Agent's disposal is not a decree, into which Rule 20. Vizagapatam Agency Rules applies. The question whether the Agent's disposal is a decree is indistinguishable from the question whether the decision under appeal before him was likewise a decree. The Assistant Agent was dealing with what undoubtedly was described before him as a petition and was headed as presented under Order 21, Rule 58, C.P.C. The circumstances were that the present 1 respondent was claiming the property attached by the present petitioner in execution of her decree against the 2nd and other respondents. The Assistant Agent in dealing with the case appears to have eventually declined to decide the two issues originally framed, which related to the claimant's title, and to have restricted his enquiry to possession with reference to the terms of Order 21, Rule 59. That was all in accordance with the character of the proceedings as resembling what in non-agency tracts are known as claim proceedings. In fact, however, the petitioner, who was then in the position of the 1 counter-petitioner, had expressly pleaded that the claim procedure under Order 21, Rule 58 was not in force in the agency tracts at all and had relied on a plea of title. The petitioner therefore, cannot be held in any degree responsible, if the Assistant Agent erred in treating the proceedings before him as claim proceedings or in limiting the scope , of the enquiry consistently with their being of that nature.

(3.) The law applicable is contained exclusively in the Agency Rules already referred to. The only provision for appeal is Rule 16. allowing an appeal from the Assistant Agent to the Agent, and there is, of course, the provision in Rule 20 for the powers and control exercisable by this Court. Those provisions apply only to decrees; and we have been able to find no provision for appeals against either orders passed in execution or other orders of a miscellaneous character. If then we are constrained to regard the Assistant Agent's order as passed on a petition and as not constituting a decree we shall have to hold that the appeal to the Agent was rightly rejected by him and to dismiss the present petition. To support the position that orders in execution are not appealable there is a decision in Sri Sri Sri Vikramadeo Maharajulum Garu v. Sri Niladevi Pattamahadevi Garu (1902) I.L.R. 26 Mad. 266 and there is clearer authority in Venkatanagabushanam V/s. Mahalakshmi (1917) I.L.R. 41 Mad. 325 : 34 M.L.J. 524 to show that miscellaneous orders by an Agent or Assistant Agent can be displaced only by an application to the Governor in Council.