CHATARBHUJ Vs. HARNANDAN LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The dispute in connexion with which this civil revision arises has already been before this Court and the matter then in dispute was the subject of Civil Revision No. 125 of 1925, decided on the 19 June 1926, and reported in Harnand Lal v. Chatarbhuj . The trouble arises out of a contract for sale of a house entered into on the 8 September 1923, by which Chatarbhuj, son of Mewa Ram (not the Chatarbhuj, son of Hem Raj who is the applicant before us), agreed to purchase from Harnand Lal, the opposite party in this application, the house in question for Rs. 95,000. He failed to carry out the contract after having paid Rs. 15,000 and Harnand Lal brought a suit against him in the Court of the Subordinate Judge. On the 2 May, 1925, Chatarbhuj, son of Hem Raj, applied under Order 32, Rule 15 to be made guardian of the defendant Chatarbhuj, son of Mewa Ram. In August 1925, Chatarbhuj, son of Hem Raj, started lunacy proceedings under Act 4 of 1912 in the Court of the District Judge asking that Chatarbhuj, son of Mewa Ram, might be declared to be not of sufficiently sound mind to be able to manage his property and his affairs. To this proceeding he did not make Harnand a party. The next step was a request by Chatarbhuj, son of Hem Raj, to the Subordinate Judge to stay proceedings in his Court on the ground of the pendency of the lunacy proceedings in the Court of the District Judge. The learned Subordinate Judge refused to stay the proceedings on the ground that if the lunacy proceedings ended in the dismissal of the application he, the Subordinate Judge, would have to proceed with his enquiry under Order 32, Rule 15. Plaintiff applied in revision of this order refusing to stay to the High Court and the High Court stayed proceedings by the judgment to which we have already referred as Harnand V/s. Chatarbhuj .

(2.) The lunacy proceedings continued in the Court of the District Judge, Harnand having been made a party at his own request. The learned District Judge dismissed the application, and Chaturbhuj, son of Hem Raj, appealed to this Court with no success. The judgment of their Lordships Mr. Justice Walsh and Mr. Justice Banerji is very brief and guarded, clearly, as it appears to us, with the intention of not prejudicing the decision at which the Subordinate Judge would later have to arrive under Order 32, Rule 15. The matter then had reached the stage at which the lunacy proceedings in the Court of the District Judge had finally terminated by an order of dismissal, which had been upheld by this Court and it remained for the Subordinate Judge to decide the matter under Order 32, Rule 15 between Chatarbhuj, son of Hem Raj, and Harnand. Both of these persons made applications to the Subordinate Judge: the one that he should hold an enquiry to determine under Order 32, Rule 15 the question whether Chatarbhuj, son of Mewa Ram, the defendant in the suit, was a person adjudged to be of unsound mind, or a person who, though not so adjudged, was by reason of unsoundness of mind or mental infirmity incapable of protecting his interests in the suit; the other, Harnand, asking for the application of Chatarbhuj, son of Hem Raj, to be struck off as Chatarbhuj, son of Mewa Ram, had been found not to be a lunatic.

(3.) On the 6 April 1927 the learned Subordinate Judge dismissed the application. He did not hold any independent inquiry whatsoever, but relied solely on the judgment of the District Judge in the lunacy proceedings as being a judgment between the parties to the application which he was deciding, and on the ground that that Court indirectly finally decreed that the defendant was not of such an unsound mind as to be incapable of protesting his interests.