DEVIDAS Vs. MUNICIPAL COMMITTEE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 1. This is an application for revision against the order of the Additional First Subordinate Judge, First Class, Nagpur, declining to allow the applicant, a dismissed servant of the Municipal Committee, Nagpur, to prosecute his suit as a pauper. The application was contested on behalf of the Municipal Committee both in the lower Court and before me. No evidence was led on behalf of the Municipal Committee, and the applicant produced evidence and witnesses both before the lower Court and before the Tahsildar who had been directed to make an enquiry into the question of the applicant's pauperism. The Tahsildar reported that the applicant, Ghate, was undoubtedly a pauper.

(2.) THE order of the lower Court appears to be based entirely on a surmise that the applicant who had held a fairly responsible position under the Municipality could not possibly be a pauper and be unable to pay the court-fee of Rs. 415. The learned Judge has admitted the present straitened circumstances of the applicant and accepted his evidence that he was out of work and barely able to maintain himself, but the inference from the fact that the applicant is actually living in a house the rental of which is Rs. 10 a month appears to have forced him to arrive at the conclusion that the applicant cannot be a pauper. The fact that the applicant has been living in this house for a certain number of years and is in arrears of rent for a period of more than two years, has not been taken into consideration. The applicant appears to have rented this house in the days of his comparative affluence and has given evidence both in the trial Court and before the Tahsildar that he has not been able to pay rent for more than two years and is now being ejected. Obviously it is cheaper to live in a house rent-free as long as the landlord permits it, though the rental is high, than to live in a cheaper house where rent would have to be paid, and this fact in itself should be considered as a cogent piece of evidence in the applicant's favour. It is argued before me that the applicant should have been able to raise money on the surrender value of the life policy which he had taken out. The inquiry made by the Tahsildar shows that the policy had lapsed and that the applicant neglected to obtain the surrender value when it did lapse. The carelessness of the applicant in the past is irrelevant in considering the question of his present poverty.