MAHALI ORAON Vs. STATE OF JHARKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a proceeding initiated by the defendants under Article 227 of the Constitution of India. The plaintiff filed a suit for declaration of his title over the property and for other consequential reliefs including the relief for a declaration that the order passed under the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act, 1907 (the Act) was illegal and unenforceable. The defendant resisted the suit. He raised the contention that the suit was not maintainable in view of Section 139 -A of the Act.

(2.) WHILE the suit was pending, the defendant moved an application seeking the hearing of the issue of maintainability of the suit raised by him as a preliminary issue. The Court below took the view that in terms of Order XIV, Rule 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, it would be proper to decide that issue along with the other issues in the suit. Hence, it refused to accede to the request of the defendant to hear the question of maintainability of the suit as a preliminary issue and deferred a decision on that issue, to be taken along with the other issues in the suit. It is this order that is sought to be challenged by the defendants in this proceeding under Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

(3.) ON the whole, I fell that the Trial Court was justified in not acceding the request to take up the issue concerned as a preliminary issue and was not in error in postponing its consideration along with the other issues after the evidence was taken. The argument of learned counsel that in every case where maintainability of the suit is questioned and it is sought to be tried as a preliminary issue, the Court is bound to accede to the request, cannot be accepted. After all, the question has to be decided in the context of Order XIV, Rule 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure and. in my view, it is for the Trial Court to decide whether a preliminary issue should be answered at the threshold or it should be tried and disposed of along with the other issues. In the circumstances, I decline to interfere with the order of the Court below. I dismiss the proceeding. But I direct the Trial Court to take note of the nature of the suit and direct it to try and dispose it of, in any event, within one year from this date.