CHITPORE GOLABARI CO LTD Vs. GIRDHARI LAL SEROGI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal has been very ably and closely argued. The plaintiffs sued the Chitpore Golabari Company Limited, by a suit which, as originally framed, prayed for a declaration of the plaintiff's title in addition to a decree for Rs. 33 being the arrears of rent due to the plaintiffs in their 12-annas share in certain property. The property actually in dispute is the property in Schedule Kha of the plaint; but the property in that schedule is also included in Schedule Ka of the plaint. The plaint is an elaborate document and a very favourable specimen of the pleadings in the lower Courts. It sets out very elaborately the history of the plaintiff's title to the land and also of the alleged tenant right of the defendants. Objection was taken to a suit constituted in that way for declaratory reliefs, amongst other things, on the question of title, being brought before the learned Munsif whose jurisdiction was limited to Rs. 1,000. The learned Munsif, by an order which has been criticised for ambiguity, appears to have directed that the plaint should be treated as amended by omitting the prayer for declaration of title and he in. the end added a 17 issue to those already framed which really covers in itself the whole ground between the parties on the footing that the suit was a mere rent suit. That is: Does the relationship of landlord and tenant subsist between the parties in respect of the lands in suit?" It is quite clear that this suit must now be treated as being, from first to last, a mere rent suit and any declaration that can possibly be given in the suit must be one wholly ancillary to the question of the defendant's liability for the rent claimed.

(2.) In a rent-suit there is no rule of law that questions of title which require to be determined are not to be determined; but there are two reasons why, in general questions of title as between the plaintiff and third persons do not require to be determined. The first reason is that for a claim, to rent as distinct from damages mere proof of the plaintiff's title is not sufficient. The second reason is that the plaintiff who as against the third person has no title may have a perfectly good claim, against the tenant whom he has inducted, for rent. Accordingly, between the landlord and the tenant the question of relationship subsisting between them and the question of the plaintiff's or anybody else's title are distinct questions though they may, for accidental reasons, become entangled.

(3.) Now, in this case, the learned Judges of both the Courts below have utilized the circumstance that the parties had stated in detail their differences in the form of numerous issues to enable them to deal with the matters in dispute under the headings of different issues. But, in strictness, in such a case as the present, the treatment of these questions of title arising incidentally as independent and substantive issues is wrong. They are matters bearing upon the sole issue, the question of relationship between landlord and tenant. Not all of them were necessary for the decision of the case but most of them were necessary and lay absolutely in the way, having to be disposed of before the case could be properly decided.