VALESWARA IYER Vs. MUTHUKRISHNA AIYAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This case has been argued at great length and with great ability, but I do not find it necessary to deal with all the points which counsel on either side have had to lay before us.

(2.) I shall first dispose of the question of res judicata which lies at the threshold of the case, and the ground on which I hold that there is no bar may be stated in a very few words. The suit of 1853 was heard and decided by a Mufti Sadar Amin, the pecuniary limit of whose jurisdiction would have precluded him from trying the present suit. His decision cannot, therefore, debar us from trying the questions which he decided. Mr. Sundara Aiyar contended that it is not open to us to interfere with the injunction issued by the Sadar Amin, but it is not necessary to decide how far that contention is sound because no party to the present suit is within the prohibition of that injunction : the only defendant who was a party to the suit of 1853 is dead. It is then contended that in as much as the civil judge, on appeal from the Principal Sadir Amin, a judge who could have tried the present suit, decided in a suit of 1871 that the decision of the Mufti Sadar Amin was a bar to the trial of the suit before him, we are bound to hold that the questions now in suit were heard and finally decided between the parties in the suit of 1871. To accept this contention would, it seems to me, strike at the root of the rule which requires that the earlier should, if the decision is to be a bar to further proceedings, be tried by a court which is competent to try the later suit.

(3.) That rule is obviously enacted to save the jurisdiction of the superior courts, to enable them to investigate questions when they arise in a suit of such value and importance that it is not entrusted to the inferior court even though these questions have been decided by the inferior court in another proceeding of less value and importance - though between the same parties.