RAGHUNATH CHARAN SINGH Vs. SHAMO KOERI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Rule calling upon the opposite party to show cause why the order of the District Judge returning the petition of appeal should not be set aside and the case sent back to him for a proper decree being made, or why the decree pronounced by the Munsif should not be set aside upon the ground that he had no pecuniary jurisdiction to entertain the suit, or why such other order as to this Court may seem fit and proper should not be made.

(2.) The facts of the case are shortly these: A suit was brought in the Court of the Munsif of Sassaram, it being valued at less than one thousand rupees. Amongst other objections the defendant, the petitioner before us, urged that the suit had been undervalued and, if properly valued, it would He not in the Munsif's Court, but in the Court of the Subordinate Judge. The Munsif disallowed this objection and disposed of the suit on the merits, giving the plaintiff a decree. Against that decree the defendant preferred an appeal to the District Judge. The District. Judge found upon the question of valuation that the suit had been undervalued and that the proper value of the suit was over five thousand rupees; and having come to that conclusion he held that he had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal, and he accordingly returned the memorandum of appeal to the appellant's pleader, evidently on the ground that he had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal and "that the petition of appeal should be presented to the High Court; the exact terms of the District Judge's order being these: "Presented by Mangal Charan, pleader, on the 29 September 1902 and returned to him today, as it. is found that the value of the appeal exceeds five thousand."

(3.) Against this order the petitioner, the defendant in the first Court, moved this Court and obtained the Rule that is now before us. A question was raised at the hearing of the Rule as to whether an appeal lay from the order of the District Judge just referred to, and whether Section 622 of the Civil P. C., under which our interference is asked for in this Rule, was therefore inapplicable to the case.