FIRM GABRULAL Vs. COURT OF WARDS, BILASPUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 1. The defendant who is the applicant here had been sued for possession of land by the zamindarin of Pendra zamindari, whose estate was under the management of the Court of Wards and who was represented by the Court of Wards as her next friend. During the hearing of the suit the zamindarin died on 1st April 1931. On 13th August 1931 an application was made by the Court of Wards for substitution of its name in place of the deceased. The defendant opposed the application on the ground that it was time-barred. The Court however allowed substitution in place of the deceased zamindarin and ordered the case to continue. It is against this order that the present application in revision is made. It is urged in the first place that the Court of Wards was incompetent to sue except on behalf of a ward and can never bring an action in its own name. It is no doubt true that neither the next friend nor a guardian ad litem is a party to the suit and cannot become a party on the death of the minor or the person under legal infirmity and it is contended that even if the succession to the zamindari was undecided the Court of Wards should at least have asked to pursue the suit in the names of the alternative claimants but cannot apply in its own capacity. This argument appears to me to be based on a misinterpretation of the powers of the Court of Wards given under Section 33, Court of Wards Act (24 of 1899). That section reads: Whenever, on the death of any Government ward, the succession to his property or any part thereof is disputed the Court of Wards may with the previous sanction of the Local Government either direct that the property or the put thereof be made over to any person claiming the property or retain the superintendence of the property until one of the claimants has established his claim to the same in a competent civil Court or institute a suit of interpleader against all the claimants.

(2.) IT is not disputed that in this case the sanction of the Local Government has been obtained and the position of the Court of Wards in respect of this suit is not that of a person acting as the next friend attempting to pursue the suit when the next friend dies, but the position of a person acting as a legal representative of the deceased. As a result of that order passed on the ward's death the Court of Wards represents no particular ward in the administration of "the 'estate but administers the estate on its own authority, and being a person who in law represents the estate of the deceased as it does by the order of the Local Government falls within the definition of a legal representative in Section 2 (11), Civil P. C. The Court of Wards, therefore, is fully entitled to carry on the suit in its own name. The next point taken is that in any case under Section 27, Court of Wards Act, it should be the manager of the ward's property who should have instituted and should continue the suit and not the Court of Wards. This objection if it were genuine should have been raised in the very beginning of the case but it was not. In any case the property is no longer a ward's property and the Court of Wards acting on its own authority and not in the capacity of the next friend is under no obligation to act through a manager.

(3.) THE result is that the applicant has not been able to press this ground of his application with much conviction. The point clearly was one which demanded consideration and it appears to me that the trial Court was acting well within its jurisdiction and discretion in accepting the reasons given for the delay. I fail to see how I can interfere in revision. The result is that the application fails and is dismissed with costs. The suit will continue. Pleader's fee Rs. 30.