T A BALAKRISHNA ODAYAR Vs. CHAKRAVARTHY VJAGANNADA CHARIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this Civil Revision Petition defendants 1 and 2 in O.S. No. 27 of 1920 on the file of the Sub-Court of Kumbakonam call for the interference of this Court in revision with certain findings of the Lower Court on certain issues in that suit. The suit has not yet been disposed of. Interference with findings in a suit not yet disposed of is not a matter which the High Court will view with favour, and it will require a very strong proof of want of jurisdiction or irregular exercise of jurisdiction to warrant interference. In this case the petitioners have before us restricted their case to three issues, on which the Lower Court has given findings, Issues I, IV and V.

(2.) The suit is one under Section 92 of the Civil Procedure Code for the removal of certain trustees of the Kumbakonam Sri Sarangapaniswami Temple, defendants 1 and 2 and for other reliefs. It is filed by two plaintiffs with the sanction of the Advocate-General. The first plaintiff is himself a trustee of the temple and the second is a member of the public interested in the trust. Issue IV relates to the prayer in the plaint for divesting the Devasthanam Committee of its superintendence over the temple. The plaintiffs have also added as defendants the members of the Committee. Before the Lower Court the plaintiffs did not press that prayer. The petitioners, who are defendants 1 and 2, wish us to interfere now because they are afraid that the Lower Court may not separate this relief from the others prayed for, and thus prejudice their defence. They seem to apprehend that the Lower Court will not be able to distinguish the reliefs which the plaintiffs have given up and those which they retain, or to restrict the evidence at the trial to those reliefs which are still being sought for by the plaintiffs. But we really cannot hold that such a vague apprehension is any reason for interference in revision.

(3.) Issue V is an issue on misjoinder. That is with reference to the members of the Devasthanam Committee being added as defendants. How this misjoinder, supposing that it is a misjoinder, damnifies the petitioner, it is difficult to see. The Committee members themselves do not complain. Had any necessary defendants been excluded, those excluded defendants might have had some grievance, but the addition of extra defendants cannot hurt the present petitioners in any way. The three cases cited by the petitioners have no application. Arunachalam Chettiar V/s. Arunachalam Chettiar and Sitaramayya V/s. Ramappayya (1916) 5 LW 207 were cited. In the former case the plaintiff's suit was liable to dismissal, unless it complied with the order sought to be revised. In the latter the plaintiff was forced to add parties against his will. But, in the present case, neither the plaintiffs nor the added defendants have any objection. Shunmugha Nadari V/s. Arunachalam Chetty (1921) ILR 45 M 194 : 42 MLJ 97 was also cited. It is a case where defendants, ordered by the Lower Court to be struck out of the records, were added by order of this Court in revision. We cannot hold that these rulings are authorities for the proposition that the alleged misjoinder in this case is an illegal or irregular exercise of jurisdiction.