(1.) THE facts of this case are sufficiently clear from the two judgments of the lower Courts. On the appeal coming on for hearing, the only ground, which was pressed, was the tenth and last one. It is perfectly obvious that the other grounds stood no chance of success, as the findings of fact of the learned District Judge were arrived at after a careful and thorough investigation of all the evidence. It is urged, however, that the Subordinate Judge of the 2nd Glass had no jurisdiction to try the suit on the ordinary side in view of the provision of Section 16 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, and in this connexion reliance has been placed on Ramasamy Chettiar v. R.G. Orr. [1903] 26 Mad. 176. White, C.J., in the said case held that, as the lower Court had exercised a jurisdiction not vested in it by law, he was bound to interfere and exercise his revisional jurisdiction. It is pertinent, however, to point out that a Bench of the same High Court in Parameshwaran Nambudiri v. Vishnu Embrandri [1904] 27 Mad. 478, expressly dissented from the earlier decision. Ayyar, O.C.J., and Benson, J., therein pointed out that the provision of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act referred to must be read along with the corresponding provision for revision as the case may be, in Civil Procedure Code. This question was considered at length in an exactly analogous case by Baker, O.J.C. cf. Kamruddin v. Mt. Indrani A.I.R. 1924 Nag. 17. It has however been suggested by counsel on behalf of the appellant that that decision overlooked the peremptory nature of Section 16 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act. I cannot concur, however, in this contention of the appellant. The judgment in Kamruddin v. Mt. Indrani A.I.R. 1924 Nag. 17 contains an exhaustive examination of many other decisions bearing on the point, and in these cases there was clearly no misapprehension as to the meaning of Section 16, Provincial Small Cause Courts Act.
(2.) FOR my own part, the objection to jurisdiction having been raised for the first time in this Court, it seems to me that the parties must be held to have consented to the case being tried originally in the Court in which it was. The equities of the case clearly do not, in my opinion, demand interference by this Court solely on the question of jurisdiction, and whether under Section 115 or Section 100 of the Civil Procedure Code it seems to me that a discretion rests with this Court whether it is in the interests of justice to interfere. In the present case it cannot be seriously contended that the interests of the parties have not been more thoroughly safeguarded by the trial of this case in the ordinary Court rather than in the Small Cause one, and I, therefore, decline to interfere.