PANDIT KALYAN DAS Vs. BABU KASHI PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a plaintiff's first appeal from an order returning a plaint for presentation to the proper Court. The learned Judge who passed the order, viz. Mr. Raghunath Prasad Trivedi, Civil Judge of Agra, held that he had no jurisdiction to entertain the suit and passed the order now under appeal. However, he proceeded to determine the other issues of fact in ease his decision was appealed against. It is against these findings that an objection under Order 41, Rule 22, Civil P.C. has been filed by the defendant-respondents. The suit out of which the appeal arises was brought by the plaintiff to recover possession of a certain piece of land. In the plaint it was alleged that the defendant had formerly been tenants of this piece of land but that they had ultimately repudiated the plaintiff's title. It was pleaded that a notice had been served upon the defendants claiming possession of the land and accordingly it was said that the defendants were nothing more than trespassers. The plaintiff valued the suit at Rs. 5100. They treated the suit as a title suit which has to be valued for the purposes of the court- fee and jurisdiction at the value of the land in dispute. Having valued the suit at Rs5100, it was, according to the plaintiff, a suit cognizable only far the learned Civil Judge.

(2.) The defendants in the suit raised a question of jurisdiction and contended that the suit was not cognizable by the learned Civil Judge but was a suit which should have been brought in the Court of the learned Munsif. On behalf of the defendants it was said that the plaintiff had deliberately over-valued his suit in order to bring it within the jurisdiction of the Court of the learned Civil Judge. according to the defendants this was really a suit to recover possession of property from a tenant holding over and therefore the suit should have been valued for the purposes of Court-fee and jurisdiction at one year's rental of the property. If the defendants contention be correct, there can be no doubt that this was a suit cognizable by the learned Munsif and not a suit which should have been brought in the Court of the learned Civil Judge.

(3.) When the case came before the learned Civil Judge, he at once realised that there was a question of jurisdiction in the case which would have to be determined, and it must have been obvious to him that a decision upon the question of jurisdiction might put an end to the case as far as his Court was concerned. At that time the learned Civil Judge was Mr. Nomani and he ordered that this issue on the question of jurisdiction be decided separately. This order was passed on 20 July 1933 and on 31 July 1933 after the parties had been given an opportunity to put forward their contentions, the learned Judge passed an order deciding this issue of jurisdiction. That order is printed at p. 3 of the paper book. Mr. Nomani held that the suit was a suit brought on the basis of title and that it had been properly valued at Rupees 5100 and consequently the Court of the learned Civil Judge of Agra had. jurisdiction to hear and determine the same.