- (1.)This revision is against the Order of the Principal District Munsif, Bhimavaram, in an application under Order 1, rule 10, Civil Procedure Code, preferred by the respondents for their substitution as plaintiffs in a suit for possession of certain land and arrear of rent. The facts leading up to this revision may succinctly be stated. The respondents are owners of land in suit. There was a previous litigation between them in O.S. No. 35 of 1944 on the file of the Subordinatejud.se, Eluru.
(2.)In that suit Sri Kuppa Yegnanarayana, an Advoc ate practising at Eluru was appointed Special Receiver to manage the suit land and other lands which belonged to the family of the respondents. It is common ground that as Receiver he had instituted two previous suits for arrears of rent against the present petitioner and duly obtained decrees. The present suit O.S. No. 294 of 1957 also was laid by him as Receiver against the same tenant for possession and arrear of rent. But it appeared that a few days prior to the institution of this suit in the Bhimavaram Munsif's Court, the Receiver had been discharged by the Subordinate Judge, Eluru. The petitioner tenant, therefore, raised a defence that the suit as laid was incompetent in that the Receiver, who sued as plaintiff had been discharged from receivership even before the commencement of the suit. The receiver thereafter informed the respondents of the suit and the defence. This led the respondents to apply to the Court under Order 1, rule 10, Civil Procedure Code, to get themselves substituted as plaintiffs in the place of the erstwhile Receiver. This application was resisted by the defendant-tenant on two grounds, first, that the application exceeded the legitimate scope of Order 1, rule 10, Civil Procedure Code, and secondly, that on the date of the application a fresh claim for rent arrear was barred by limitation. Both these objections were overruled by the Court below, which allowed the present respondents to be substituted as plaintiffs. The defendant-tenant, who is aggrieved by this order, has come up to this Court in revision to challenge its correctness.
(3.)Much of the argument in this revision has centered round the provisions of clause (1) of rule 10 of Order 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure. It may, therefore, be quoted :
"Where a suit has been instituted in the name of the wrong person as plaintiff or where it is doubtful whether it has been instituted in the name of the right plaintiff, the Court may at any stage of the suit, if satisfied that the suit has been instituted through a bona fide mistake, and that it is necessary for the determination of the real matter in dispute so to do, order any other person to be substituted or added as plaintiff upon such terms as the Court thinks just."