LALA MISTRY Vs. GANESH MISTRY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application in revision against an order of the Munsif, First Court of Patna, whereby after the rejection of an application by the petitioner to sue in forma pauperis, he refused to treat the application as a plaint and to accept the court-fee stamps payable on it as a plaint and to treat the suit as having been instituted on the date on which the pauper application was presented. The case has something of a history. The petitioner's application to sue as a pauper was, to begin with, dismissed on 20 April 1936. Thereafter on 18 May 1936 the petitioner requested the leave of the Court to file deficit court-fee which the Munsif refused on 16 June 1936. Thereafter the petitioner moved the High Court in revision and the previous order of the Munsif was set aside and the Munsif was ordered to make further enquiry and to dispose of the application to sue as a pauper in accordance with law.

(2.) This order was passed on 13 October 1936 and the Munsif after some other proceedings passed an order on 9 December 1936 again refusing leave to sue as a pauper. The petitioner moved the High Court against this order, but his petition was rejected on 10 March 1937 without issuing notice to the opposite party. The petitioner's advocate apparently understood that a direction would be given to receive the required court-fee treating the application as a plaint and thereafter proceeding as with an ordinary suit. Varma, J. however in his order merely observed that the petitioner might move the Munsif. The petitioner did so on the 18 March. The Munsif called for the record and the officer before whom the case came directed the applicant to pay the court-fee by the 10 April and the record to be put up on that) date for orders. The court-fee of Rupees 112-8-0 was paid on the 10 April, but the Munsif on looking through the order-sheet felt himself unable to accept the court-fee at that stage, at any rate without hearing both sides.

(3.) After hearing both sides he passed on 20 April 1937 the order against which the petitioner has moved this Court, the substance of which is that the application is rejected. Among the grounds for this decision, the Munsif said that a similar petition had been rejected by his predecessor on 16 June 1936 and that no new circumstance had been brought to his notice to justify him in reviewing that order. He observed incidentally that the order passed by the Hon ble High Court appeared to have been passed in ignorance of that order. Besides this ground, he was of opinion that the law was as stated in the Full Bench decision of the Allahabad High Court in Chunna Mal V/s. Bhagwant Kishore .