MT. GUNIABAI Vs. SHANKERRAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application by Mt. Guniabai against an order of the Additional District Judge, Nagpur, rejecting her application to be allowed to sue as a pauper. The suit in question was one for partition and the Court-fee ordinarily payable would be Rs. 976-6-0.

(2.) IN the first place an objection has been taken by the pleader for non-applicants 1, 3 and 4 to the effect that no revision lies in the case, and the decision in Shankar Ban v. Ram Deo , has been quoted in support of this position. For my own part, I fully concur, on the contrary, in the decision in Achalsingh v. D.B. Seth Jiwandas A.I.R. 1924 Nag. 44, as well as in Ramchandra v. Gajrabai A.I.R. 1925 Nag. 343. This Court, however, will not interfere in this class of cases unless there is some material irregularity or illegality in the lower Court's procedure. Even if this Court, on the evidence in question, were itself disposed to take a different view of questions of fact involved, this cannot authorize interference in revision. On this view of matters only two questions, which may, by any stretch of reasoning, be deemed to raise legal points, can be said to arise in the present case.

(3.) I have also been referred by the pleader for the applicant to a decision of Mahmood, J., in Muhamad Husain v. Ajudhia Prasad [1888] 10 All. 467. In that judgment, certain remarks are made which would tend to approve of a peculiarly lenient standard of proof being laid down in the case of an applicant like the present who desires to file a suit in forma pauperis. It is difficult to lay down any general rule in such a matter, but with all respect for the learned Judge in question it seems to me that, under the rules contained in Order 33, Civil P.C., the onus of proving that a person is a pauper with in the meaning of the explanation to Rule 1 idem, clearly lies heavily on the applicant in question. The non-applicants in such a case are in no easy position because what they have to prove is in reality a negative and it is no matter for them to prove the property in the applicant's possession, a matter of which the latter must necessarily have special means of knowledge. In any event, I cannot, however, see that the District Judge has in any way erred legally in this connexion. In a question of fact like the one we are concerned with in the present case, many of the conclusions must necessarily be largely arrived at on the inferences arising naturally from the evidence. In this connexion I agree with the Judge of the lower Court that the oral evidence produced in support of the applicant is far from satisfactory. On the other hand the non-applicants have produced oral evidence which goes to show that the applicant engages in money-lending, and I may add that the story of the sale of ornaments by the applicant strikes me as a very cock-and-bull one. Considering the applicant's story and the position in life of her husband, all the probabilities are against the story of her alleged pauperism and the present suit seems only one of a class too common in this country where a dishonest attempt is made by a person, who could easily find the Court-fee necessary, to file a suit as a pauper with the mere object, of, so to speak, litigating cheaply. There is little to lose, and possibly much to gain, by such an attempt.