DURGA PRASANNA ROY Vs. ISHAN CHANDRA SHAHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In the case out of which this appeal arises the plaintiff, one of the co-sharers in an estate for which a common manager had been appointed under Section 95 of the Bengal Tenancy Act, sued the common manager for accounts after the release of the estate. The Court of first instance gave him a preliminary decree for accounts, hut the lower Appellate Court has dismissed his suit, holding that the permission necessary for a suit of this nature had not been given by the District Judge, and also that the suit was not maintainable, for the reason that the accounts of the defendant had already been regularly checked and passed in the office of the District Judge. These two findings are challenged on second appeal.

(2.) As regards the former, the appellant relies on an order passed by the District Judge in releasing the estate, which runs: "permission to sue the common manager is granted." He contends that this permission extends to all the co-sharers, himself included. The respondent on the other hand argues that, because the proceedings in the course of which this order was made originated with a petition presented by certain individual co-sharers, the permission must be held to be restricted to them alone, and that the plaintiff not haying been one of them is not entitled to sue. In our opinion the contention of the appellant must prevail.

(3.) All the co-sharers were made parties to the proceeding in question; all of them had an equal interest in suing the common manager if there appeared to be grounds for so doing; the permission given is not restricted either to any individual co-sharers or to all the co-sharers suing jointly, and anyone or more of the co-sharers were, therefore, entitled to avail themselves of it. The permission was clearly intended to remove altogether the bar which without it would have stood in the way of any suit, such as the present one, being brought against the common manager.