DHORIBHAI DADABHAI PATEL Vs. PRAGDASJI BHAGWANDASJI MAHANT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a revision application which raises the question whether the transfer of a suit made by the District Judge of Kaira to the Court of the First Class Subordinate Judge at Nadiad is valid.

(2.) The suit in question was instituted in 1928, and it is a suit relating to a scheme for a charity, a class of suits which falls within Section 92 of the Civil Procedure Code. The suit was instituted in the District Court of Kaira, the subject- matter of the suit arising in the village of Sarsa which is within the Kaira District. The claim was valued at Rs. 20. Issues were framed, and on July 28, 1933, the District Judge transferred the suit to the Court of the First Class Subordinate Judge, and the question is whether that transfer is legal.

(3.) Now, Section 92 provides that in cases falling within that section, a person may on the conditions specified institute a suit for specified relief in the principal civil Court of original jurisdiction, or in any other Court empowered in that behalf by the Local Government within the local limits of whose jurisdiction the whole or any part of the subject-matter of the trust is situate. Apart from any express power conferred by the Local Government, under the section upon a particular Court, it would seem to me clear that a suit instituted in the District Court as the principal civil Court of original jurisdiction cannot be transferred by the District Judge to one of his Subordinate Judges. Section 24 of the Code provides that the High Court or the District Court may transfer any suit pending before it for trial or disposal to any Court subordinate to it and competent to try or dispose of the: same. Apart from Section 92, any Second Class Subordinate Judge in the Kaira District would be competent to try this suit, but to hold that the District: Judge has power to transfer a suit which under Section 92 must be instituted in his Court to any Second Class Subordinate Judge would defeat one of the purposes of the section. It is clear that the Legislature for some reason considered that in suits of this particular nature the Court trying them should be of a certain status, and the object of the section would be destroyed if the general powers of transfer under Section 24 applied to suits instituted under Section 92. In my opinion, therefore, the First Class Subordinate Judge is not competent to try this suit unless it can be shown that he was empowered to do so by the Local Government under Section 92.