HARNAND LAL Vs. CHATURBHUJ

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application asking this Court to stay further proceedings in a suit pending in the Court of the Second Additional Subordinate Judge of Cawnpore until the decision of certain lunacy proceedings pending in the Court of the District Judge of Mainpuri. The plaintiff Harnand Lal sued Chaturbhuj (to whom we will refer in this judgment as Chaturbhuj defendant in distinction from his son-in-law to whom we will refer as Chaturbhuj junior) for specific performance of a contract. Cbaturbhuj junior applied to the Subordinate Judge under Order 32, Rule 15 of the Civil P. C. praying for a guardian-ad-litem to be appointed for Chaturbhuj defendant, on the ground that the latter was of weak mind. Some evidence was taken, when on the 4 of September 1925 the vakil of Chaturbhuj defendant informed the Court that luancy proceedings were going on in the Court of the District Judge of Mainpuri in reference to the mental condition of the defendant. A week later the plaintiff asked the Subordinate Judge to adjourn the proceedings in his Court until a decision in the lunacy proceedings had been arrived at. This application was refused and it is to set aside that refusal that this application has been made. Subsequent to the Subordinate Judge's refusal the plaintiff successfully applied to the District Judge of Mainpuri to be made a party to the lunacy proceeding. The learned Judge in refusing the application for stay of the proceedings before him said: "There is no doubt that if that Court decides that the defendant is a lunatic then this Court will be bound by that order; but even if the application under the Lunacy Act is for some reason disallowed then still this Court will have to decide whether the defendant, on account of mental infirmity, is unable to protect his own interests. I have already recorded part of the evidence and so I think the matter should be decided so far as the present suit is concerned."

(2.) It is of course obvious that if the District Judge finds Chaturbhuj defendant to be of sound mind for the purposes of the proceedings before him the learned Subordinate Judge will have in that case to proceed with and finally determine the question of the mental fitness of the defendant within the meaning of Order 32, Rule 15. It is equally obvious that if the District Judge finds the defendant to be a lunatic that finding will conclude the question at present pending before the Subordinate Judge. Counsel for Chaturbhuj junior before us is unable to suggest any prejudice whatever that his client or Chaturbhuj defendant will suffer by a stay of the proceedings in the Court of the Subordinate Judge, even if eventually the lunacy of the defendant be not established in the Court of the District Judge. There should at the most be a very brief delay while the Subordinate Judge completes the enquiry necessary for the proceedings before him. On the other hand it is manifest that to continue the proceedings before the Subordinate Judge when the result of the proceedings before the District Judge may show them to have been already unnecessary, is most undesirable. Such a course would manifestly infringe the principle that this Court and every other Court should avoid as far as possible multiplicity of proceedings in the same matter. It is further pertinently urged on behalf of the plaintiff before us that the evidence which he will require So produce before the Subordinate Judge and before the District Judge is practically the same and that it is impossible for him to be taking his witnesses backwards and forwards to two different Courts in the same matter. We think that these facts only require to be stated to indicate forcibly that it is desirable that the proceedings in the Court of the Subordinate Judge should be stayed.

(3.) The only question that it has been possible for counsel for the opposite party here to seriously urge is that this Court has no power to stay the proceedings. The plaintiff applicant here did not justify his right to apply to this Court by a reference to any enactment in the title of his application. It has since been entitled as an application under Section 115, Civil P.C., in response, as we are informed by counsel for the applicant, to a suggestion from the learned Judge before whom this case first came. For the opposite party it is contended that the case is not one in which this Court can interfere on the revisional side under Section 115 and he relies on the decision of the Full Bench in Budhoo Lal V/s. Mewa Ram AIR 1921 All 1. We think that this contention, in the particular circumstances in which this order of refusal to stay was passed, must be accepted. Counsel for the plaintiff-applicant then fell back on the provisions of Section 151, Civil P.C., and of Section 107 of the Government of India Act. In the view that we take it will be unnecessary for us to consider the latter section.