Ghinoo Chaudhuri vs Ramjapu Singh

Rowland, J.—These are two applications to revise the orders of the Small Cause Court Judge refusing to allow rehearing under Order 9, Rule 13, Civil P.C., of Small Cause Court suits which had been decreed against the petitioner one in 1932 and one in 1934. The applications were both presented on the same date, namely 11th January 1936 but are directed against different respondents, the plaintiffs of the two Small Cause Court suits having been different.

The applicant in each case alleged that the summonses of the original suits had been suppressed and that he came to know of the proceedings in each case for the first time on 7th January 1936. The applications as presented appear to have been found defective. They were amended on 25th January 1936. It was then observed that the security bonds should be filed in time duly registered. Then the Court fixed 8th February 1936 for further orders. The bonds were filed on 8th February. The applications were heard together and were dismissed on 18th May 1936, the trial Court observing that the bonds had been filed after the period of limitation counting time from the date of the petitioner''s alleged knowledge. The petitioner has thereupon moved this Court on the ground that time having been allowed by the Small Cause Court Judge to 8th February 1936 for the furnishing of the security bond, he should not have been considered to be out of time so long as he furnished the security bond by the date fixed by the Court.

I am unable to read the Court''s order of 21st January 1936 as by implication extending the time for furnishing the security bonds 8th February was no doubt fixed for further proceedings in the case, but when the order was that the applicant should file the security bond duly registered in time, the meaning must have been that the bond was to be filed within the period of limitation, and the question whether it had been so filed in time would be considered later.

Apart from that it appears to be the view of all the High Courts in India except Lahore that the requirements of Section 17, Small Cause Courts Act, that the amount due or security for it is to be furnished "at the time of presenting the application" can only be relaxed to this extent that if the application is presented without the money or the security bond and the security bond or money is put in thereafter, the application will be considered to have been duly filed on the date on which the money was put in or the security furnished as the case may be. I cannot follow the Lahore view in face of the united authority of the other High Courts. Apart from this, the trial Court came to a finding that the applicant had not correctly stated his date of knowledge in his application, that in fact he was aware of the proceedings against him from before that date and that his application was time-barred in any case. There is another difficulty in the way of the applicant and that is that the applications bear the heading Section 115, Civil P.C. The powers of this Court to interfere under this section are very limited.

At the hearing Mr. Mehdi Imam suggested that the objection was technical and that the application was intended to be one u/s 25, Provincial Small Cause Courts Act and might be treated as such. To do this would require an amendment of the application. But in any case no ground for interference even u/s 25 is made out. Mr. Mehdi Imam desired to take another point at the hearing that the Court below committed an error in consolidating the two applications and hearing them together to the prejudice of the petitioner. It is a difficulty in his way that no such ground is taken in the application to this Court, and if it had been, it would be necessary for him to establish that he had not consented to the treatment of the two applications as analogous.

On the other hand, it appears that not only he filed them both on the same date but that they were throughout treated as analogous apparently with his consent.

The result is that I find no substance in the applications which are dismissed with costs: hearing fee two gold mohurs in each case.