RAMESHWAR BHAGAT Vs. THAKUR JEBAN NARAYAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners are persons claiming to be added as parties-defendants in a rent suit alleging that they had purchased the greater part of the holding in suit in November 1929 in execution of a mortgage decree. The petitioners on a previous occasion had filed a claim case which was allowed in 1933. The present plaintiff as decree-holder had sought to attach and put to sale the crops on the holding now in suit. The claim of the present petitioners was allowed.

(2.) The petitioners in January 1936 made, an application in accordance with Section 26(O), Bihar Tenancy Act, to deposit with the Collector Rs. 120 as transfer fee payable to the landlord, and as stated in the Munsif's judgment a receipt, dated 6 February 1936, was granted to them. They applied on 12 March 1936 to be added as a party in the suit and the application was refused on 27 April 1936, the Munsif being of opinion that he could not implead the interveners when the plaintiff objected.

(3.) A preliminary objection is taken that this application is infructuous as the suit has already been decreed ex parte against the raiyat defendants. I do not find any substance in this objection. The circumstances were similar in Nilambar Jha v. Chandradhari Singh (1929) 10 PLT 442 in which the order was that if the Munsif found that the petitioners were entitled to be added as parties he should give them an opportunity to set aside the ex parte order, that is to say, if these petitioners ought to have been added as parties, the fact that since the disposal of their application the suit has been decreed ex parte will not stand in their way. The Munsif thought that the petitioners were not entitled to be joined as parties because their deposit of the transfer fee was made after the commencement of this suit and so the recognition of them as transferees by the landlord would also be deemed to have taken place after the commencement of the suit.