VANJIAPPA GOUNDAN Vs. NPVLRANNAMALAI CHETTIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Revision Petition is filed against the order of the Court below refusing to strike out the petitioner's name from the plaint. The petitioner who is the second plaintiff in the suit sold to the first plaintiff the first respondent herein a certain village called Puducottah which, along with certain other villages belonging to the defendants in the suit some of whom are the other respondents here, was charged with the payment of a certain annuity. In execution of a decree obtained for the recovery of such annuity, the petitioner's village was sold but the sale was set aside under Order 21, Rule 89 on the petitioner depositing Rs. 7,976-9-6 in Court. The petitioner alone having thus paid the entire amount which was payable from out of all the villages charged with such payment, he claimed to be entitled to recover Rs. 2,514 by way of contribution from the owners of the other villages. Subsequently, the petitioner sold the village of Puducottah to the first respondent with all rights appurtenant thereto. The sale-deed purports to convey also the petitioner's right to recover this sum of Rs. 2,514 and the present suit was accordingly brought by the first respondent impleading the petitioner as second plaintiff for recovering this sum from the defendants who are the owners of the other villages charged with the payment of the annuity.

(2.) In the application filed by the petitioner in the Court below, however, he alleged, that, the sale by him to the first respondent was never intended to convey his right to recover the amount in question, that the clause purporting to convey this sum also was included in the sale-deed by the first respondent fraudulently, advantage being taken of his ignorance and illiteracy and that he was impleaded as the second plaintiff in the suit without his knowledge. The lower Court, however, found that the petitioner did sign the plaint and also the vakalath executed to the first respondent's pleader in the Court below and the petitioner's learned Advocate has not attacked that finding before me.

(3.) He contends that inasmuch as there is no prayer in the plaint for any relief being awarded to the petitioner, either primarily or in the alternative, he could not be regarded as a plaintiff at all in the proper sense of the term, and his joinder as second plaintiff was improper, and the Court below should therefore have struck out his name under Order 1, Rule 10(2), Civil Procedure Code. The first respondent objects on the ground that the petitioner's application was vaxatious and inspired by the first defendant (second respondent herein) who wants to defeat his right to recover the amount in question under the sale from the petitioner, and that the striking out of the latter's name from the suit would be highly prejudicial to him. The second respondent has no objection to the petitioner's name being struck off as second plaintiff, provided he is added as a defendant but insists that the petitioner should remain on the record, as his presence is necessary for a complete and effectual adjudication of all the matters in controversy between the parties.