ASHARFI LAL Vs. DEPUTY-COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE judgment appealed from appears to turn upon a pure technicality. The Appellant had lent money to Ehsan Husain Khan on the security of certain bonds. Ehsan Husain subsequently became a lunatic, and was so declared by an order of Court of the 17th of November, 1885, and his estate was declared to be under the Court of Wards, and was placed under the charge of the Deputy-Commissioner of Bara Banki. In other words, it became subject to the administration of the Court of Wards, and the Court of Wards appointed a manager. The Appellant brought a suit in 1888 against the Deputy-Commissioner for the recovery of the money lent. The claim was partially decreed by the Sub-Judge of Bara Banki, and that decree was affirmed on appeal by the District Judge of Lucknow. No further appeal was, as of right, open to the Defendant, but he applied to the Judicial Commissioner to revise the case under the terms of Section 622 of the Civil Procedure Code of 1882, on various grounds set forth in his application. All the objections taken were overruled by the Judicial Commissioner, and are not now insisted upon. But the Judicial Commissioner took a new objection of his own, and held that the first Court had no jurisdiction to try the ease. He said: "The Court of First Instance had no jurisdiction to try this case against the Court of Wards, because a manager, Ghazafar Ali Khan, having been appointed by the Collector, either in his general capacity or as Court of Wards, he was the proper person to be so sued on behalf of the lunatic; Vide sects. 11 and 14, Act XXXV., 1858. Or else the guardian of the lunatic's person, who was his mother, ought to have been so sued."

(2.) THERE seems to have been some confusion in the mind of the learned Judge between a "manager " and a "guardian." The Oudh Land Revenue Act (Act XVII. of 1876), relied upon by him, enacts (Sections 175 and 176): "All disqualified proprietors whose property is in charge of the Court of Wards shall sue and be sued by and in the name of their guardians, where guardians have been appointed: provided that no such suit shall be maintained or defended by any guardian without the sanction of the Court of Wards. If no such guardian has been appointed, the disqualified proprietors shall sue and be sued by and in the name of the Court of Wards." There is nothing said about a manager.