- (1.) THE petitioners, who are six in number, obtained a Rule from this Court against five orders made under [section 5a of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act, namely, (i) Order, dated March, 23, 1960 made in Case No. 43 of 1960, Prafulla Kumar Sarker and others v. Tapas Roy. (ii) Order, dated May 14, 1959, made in Case No. 42 of 1959, Prafulla Kumar Sarker and others v. Manke Das Rava. (iii) Order, dated September 3, 1958, in Case No. 9 of 1958, Prafulla Kumar Sarker and others v. Bidyadhar Ray. (iv) Order, dated Sept. 3, 1958, in the case between Prafulla Kumar Sarker and others v. Ramani Mohan Sarker. (V) ORDER, dated JUNE 10, 1958, in Case No, 1 of 1958, Manindra Chandra Singha Sarker V. Durga Barman.
(2.) THE petitioners allege that long before May 5, 1953 they had agreed to lease or agreed to sell some of the disputed plots of land to certain persons or had settled some of the disputed plots of land with Chukanidars or undertenants and had, in part performance of the said agreements, or in performance of the settlements, made over actual or physical possession of the disputed lands to those persons, although in some cases formal deeds of transfer or settlement were executed after May 5, 1953. They challenged the provisions of section 5a of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act on diverse grounds and particularly in its application to Coochbehar, where the disputed lands are situate, and obtained Civil Rule No. 407 (W) of 1961. They now apply for leave under Order 1, Rule 8 of the Code of Civil Procedure to convert their petition into a representative petition on behalf of or for the benefit of all tenants, under tenants, raiyats and jotedars, who are being aggrieved or affected by proceedings taken under section 5a of the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act, 1953.
(3.) ON being questioned whether such a procedure is available to an application for high prerogative Writ under Article 226 of the Constitution, Mr. D. N. Das, learned Advocate for the petitioners relied on the observations contained in the following decisions in support of the application. (i) Bejoy Ranjan Rakshit v. B. C. Das Gupta, (A. I. R. 1953 Calcutta 289), in which Bose J. , (as the Chief Justice then was) observed: "it appears from the Statute relating to this State Medical Faculty, being Clause 2, that the State Medical Faculty consists of (a) Governing Body, (b) Fellow, (c) Members and (d) Licentiates, and it is stated by the learned Advocate for the opposite parties that the total number of the members of the State Medical Faculty is very large. Even assuming that it would be more appropriate to impaled all the members of the Faculty as parties to this application, it is open to the petitioner to have recourse to O. 1, R. 8 Civil P. C. and proceed against only some of the members representing themselves and all other members of the State Medical Faculty. It appears to me that the objection taken by Mr. Banerji is a purely technical one and can be easily cured by a formal amendment. Therefore, the objection cannot be considered as fatal to this application. " (ii) Manindra Nath Pal V. Municipal Commissioners of Baranagore Municipality (2) (A. I. R. 1956 Cal. 291) in which Sinha, J. , observed :- "finally, Mr. Pal argues that the petitioners have different causes of action and should not be allowed to join in one application. He also takes the point that even if a joint application is maintainable, there are certain drawbacks in such an application. In such an application, you either give relief to all or to none. If it is found that even one of the applicants is disentitled to relief, the whole application must fail. Reference has been made to American Jurisprudence Vol. 35, page 81 para. 333. In my opinion, such highly technical rules of procedure should not be incorporated in our law. This is a poor country and litigation expenses are high. Multiplication of legal proceedings should be avoided at all costs. It would be sufficient to follow analogously the provisions of O. 1 Civil P. C. However, this is a point upon which it is unnecessary to say more because it finally appears that only one petitioner has any possible ground to put forward in this application. ";