LAGADAPATI VENKATANAGABUSHANAM Vs. OVILAPATI MAHALAXMI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE 1st respondent brought a suit against the petitioner in the Court of the Assistant Agent in the Godavari District for dissolution of partnership and other reliefs. THE suit was dismissed for default. THEn the plaintiff appealed to the Agent, who without hearing the defendant in the suit set aside the order dismissing the suit for default and directed that the suit be restored to the file of the Assist-ant Agent to be heard and disposed of according to law. Against this order of the Agent, the present civil miscellaneous petition has been preferred asking us to direct the Agent to review his order according to Rule 8 of the Agency Rules. But that rule applies only to decrees passed by the Government Agent and to judgments leading to decrees.

(2.) A preliminary objection is taken that the order of the Agent directing that the suit be restored to file is not a decree within the meaning of the Agency rule. We think that this contention is sound. The point has been decided in Pedda Vikrama Deo Garu v. Maharaja of Jeypore 36 Ind. Cas. 801: 4 L. W. 499: (1916) 2 M. W. N. 269. following a number of other decisions of this Court. There a decree is understood as meaning the same thing as a decree under the Civil Procedure Code, for the Agency Rules themselves do not contain any definition of "decree." We see no reason for differing from that interpretation. What, however, was argued by the learned Vakil for the petitioner was that though the order of the Assistant Agent dismissing the suit for default is not a decree, yet the order of the Agent setting aside that order and directing the restoration of the suit is an adjudication of the rights of the parties within the meaning of the definition of "decree" as given in the old Civil Procedure Code. But it is difficult to accept this contention. The right contemplated by that definition is not a right to the benefit of certain rules of procedure, that is, to have an order of Court set aside by which the plaintiff s suit has been disposed of in his absence. We may observe that Rule 16 of the Agency Rules provides that all petitions against the proceedings of the Government Agent must in the first instance be submitted to the Government, and then it is open to the Government to refer the matter to the High Court or to the Board of Revenue as the case may be. There can be no doubt that the Government Agent in this case was not justified in getting aside the order dismissing the suit for default without giving an opportunity to the defendant to be heard. The proper remedy of the petitioner is to submit a petition to the Government and it is for the Government, if it so chooses, to refer the petition to the High Court for disposal. The present petition must be dismissed with costs.