- (1.) Mr. P.N. Tagore has filed a suit against several persons including the Academy of Fine Arts, the cause of action being based on libel. The Academy is a society registered under the Societies Registration Act (XXI of 1860) and in the cause title it has been described as "the Academy of Fine Arts excluding the Plaintiff, a society registered under Act XXI of 1860 Represented by Defendant No. 2 here in below mentioned and by Maharajadhiraja Udaychand Mahtab Bahadur and Sir Birendranath Mookerjee working for gain at No. 12 Mission Row in the town of Calcutta, both of whom purport to be acting as trustees and/or to be acting as members of the Advisory Council of the said Academy". There are 4 other Defendants including Lady Ranu Mookerjee who has been sued personally and also in her capacity as the President of the Academy.
(2.) I express no opinion on the merits of the case. The present summons was taken out by Messrs. Orr Dignam and Company acting for the Academy of Fine Arts and the Defendant No. 2 Lady Mookerjee, for various orders, including (a) that the plaint be struck out for misjoinder of Defendants and Causes of action and/or embarrassing, (b) in the alternative that the name of the Academy of Fine Arts be struck out of the list of the Defendants in the cause title. The application is also for an order on the Plaintiff to furnish a very large number of particulars to be found in Ext. A to the affidavit of Ganesh Chandra Dey.
(3.) I decided to have the application heard in the first instance only as to the maintainability of the suit in its present form, i.e., whether it was open to the Plaintiff to sue the Academy of Fine Arts as he has purported to do, for, if the Academy of Fine Arts has not been sued properly a lengthy trial might be avoided.;