LAGADAPATI VENKATA NAGABHUSHANAM Vs. GARLAPATI MAHALAKSHMI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The first respondent brought a suit against the petitioner in the court of the Assistant Agent in the Godaveri 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 Assistant 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:- "All decrees passed by the Government Agent on appeal from decrees of his subordinates shall be final the High Court having the power on special ground for him to require to review his judgment as may be directed by them 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 Rules. We think that this contention is sound. The point has been decided in Sri Pedda Vikrama Deo Garu v. The Maharaja of Jeypore (1916) 4 L.W. 499 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 without trial. We may observe that Rule 162 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 setting aside the order dismissing the suit for default without giving an opportunity to the defendant to be heard.

(3.) 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.