Mahabir La vs Srimati Dulhin Rajan Kuer

Wort, J.—When I granted this rule I had in mind the observations of Lord Haldane in 1. Balkrishna Udayar v. Vasudeva Aiyar, 1917 P C 71 = 40 I C 650 = 41 I A 261 = 40 Mad 793 (P C) at p. 267 of 44 I.A., in which in referring to S. 115, Civil P.C. he made this statement:

The section is not directed against conclusions of law or facts in which the question of jurisdiction is not involved,

and the argument addressed to me in this case in substance is based upon that observation. The matter was a question of court-fees and incidentally raised a question of jurisdiction. The trial Court had valued the relief which the plaintiff claimed at Rs. 18,000 being the value of the property. On appeal it is quite clear that the Judge was of the opinion that the proper valuation should be based on what the plaintiff would lose if she failed in the suit. That was placed at Rs. 650 which was the valuation which the plaintiff herself placed upon the plaint, or to be more correct upon the relief which she claimed. Reference has been made to a decision of Mullick, J., and the Chief Justice in Ram Sekhar Prasad Singh v. Sheonandan Dubey, 1923 Pat 137 = 73 I C 43 = 2 Pat 198 for the proposition that a claim for confirmation of possession is nothing more than a claim for possession. That being so the proper value to be placed on a relief is the value of the property. In my judgment in this case on its merits I should not be persuaded to hold that the true valuation of this property was Rs. 18,000, having regard to the fact that the respondent herself paid Rs. 650 and the present petitioner Rs. 200. As a general proposition relating to matters of this kind the best method of obtaining the valuation of a particular property is to take the price at which it is sold. It is after all the market value which is to be taken, and not a fictitious value. I mention these matters as having some bearing upon the decision which has been arrived at in this case. It has been argued in great detail whether this Court has jurisdiction to revise the order. S. 115, Civil P C., has been referred to so many times that it is unnecessary to mention it again; but it is admitted and indeed it could not be denied that in determining the question of valuation the Subordinate Judge certainly had jurisdiction and it cannot be said that he failed to exercise the jurisdiction either. The only possibility is to say that in exercising his jurisdiction he did so with illegality or with material irregularity, or as the section speaks of it

has acted in the exercise of his jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity.

I cannot imagine how any difficulty can possibly arise about the interpretation of those words, even though this matter is argued every day and many times a day when the question is raised. The words are plain English words with a plain and simple English meaning. Has the Judge acted illegally in this case by deciding the question of law? The answer to that might be left until we determine the question whether he acted with material irregularity. The answer to that is that he has not acted with material irregularity; no one would say that he did. The only possible suggestion could be that he acted illegally. In one sense of the word every Court that decides the question of law erroneously decides it illegally, but as the Privy Council has pointed out in the case, which has now become classical, a wrong decision on a point of law is not a decision which is either illegal or with material irregularity. It appears that their Lordships in Amir Hasan Khan v. Sheo Baksh Singh, (1885) 11 Cal 6 = 11 I A 237 (P C) held that they had perfect jurisdiction to decide the question which they had before them. Whether they decided it rightly or wrongly, they had jurisdiction to decide the case; and even if they decided it wrongly, they did not exercise the jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity. That is an answer in my judgment to every argument of this kind. As I have observed in the first part of my judgment, whether a possible argument is to be made by the petitioner out of the words of Lord Haldane. It is said that a question of jurisdiction was involved here and therefore in one sense of the word as the matter of jurisdiction is for decision of the Court, no Court has jurisdiction to decide a point of law wrongly, more particularly the point of law relating to limitation, although the Privy Council expressly stated that a wrong decision on a question of limitation is not open to revision. What does Lord Haldane mean by saying that the section is not directed against conclusions of law or fact not involving a matter of jurisdiction?

Did he mean that if the decision relates to a question of jurisdiction then it is open to revision; but if it relates to any other matter it is not open to revision? I cannot understand those words in that sense. In the case which I have mentioned the question of limitation is expressly provided for by S. 3, Limitation Act, and the Court is prohibited from deciding a case which is barred by limitation. Therefore in deciding a point of law relating to limitation it involves a question of jurisdiction; but having regard to the decision of their Lordships of the Judicial Committee we have to look elsewhere for an explanation of the words upon which reliance is placed. The only conclusion I can arrive at is that Lord Haldane used those words to mean that the matter of jurisdiction was not involved in coming to the decision, not in the result of the decision. If the conclusion of law or fact cannot he interfered with in revision and if that were taken to be a statement of the law without exception, then it would have the effect of repealing S. 115. Therefore Lord Haldane added the words in which the question of jurisdiction is not involved and by that I understand him to mean, to repeat myself, that when a decision is come to in a matter in which the Court has jurisdiction, a question of jurisdiction is not involved. I would dispose of this rule on those grounds.

A large number of authorities have been quoted by Mr. Surju Prasad and Mr. S.N. Ray in support of their respective cases, but there is hardly a case which is in point. It is true that Mr. Ray relied upon a judgment of Adami, J., in a similar case in which that learned Judge said that the District Judge had jurisdiction to decide the matter and he found that the valuation placed on the suit by the plaintiff was a reasonable valuation. Then he goes on to observe that had it been arbitrary or unreasonable he would interfere. Mr. Surju Prasad relies upon that to support his contention that the valuation in this case was unreasonable. It is quite clear that the learned Judge in the case to which I am referring, which was a case of Janki Sahay v. Lalbehari Lal, 1926 Pat 334 = 94 I C 103, was referring to 01. 3, S. 115 in the sense that if the decision had been arbitrary and unreasonable it would have been the exercise of jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity. The case however in so far as it gives any support to either side would support the respondent in my judgment. But it seems to me that in all these case the matter is to be decided not only on the plain reading of S. 115 itself, but on the particular facts of the case and even if I had been of the opinion that the order was revisable, which I am not, in my view of S. 115 I would have come to the conclusion that the jurisdiction should not have been exercised on behalf of the petitioner in this case, because, it would have been a very fine question as to whether the learned Judge was wrong in substance in coming to the conclusion that the proper valuation was Rs. 650. By that I mean that while recognizing that the proposition which Mr. Surju Prasad puts forward is well founded, namely, that the proper valuation should be the valuation of the property itself, I am not altogether persuaded that the valuation although expressed as being the loss which the plaintiff would suffer was not in fact the valuation of the property itself. For those reasons I come to the conclusion that the rule must be discharged with costs; hearing fee two gold mohurs.