- (1.) This appeal has to be allowed on the short ground that the suit is bad for misjoinder of the parties and of causes of action. This objection was raised by the defence in Courts below,
(2.) The plaintiffs are co-sharer landlords and they filed the present suit against a large number of defendants who may be grouped under the following heads : defendants 1 to 16 were their co-sharers; Nos. 17 and 18 were two lawyers of the estate; Nos. 19 to 25 were officers, tahsildars, gomosthas and other employees of the estate ; No. 26 is alleged to have intermeddled with the property as on behalf of defendant 1; and Nos. 27 to 38 were other proprietors of different estates. The claim was one for accounts against all these persons.
(3.) A reading of the plaint itself would at once show that the causes of action were different not only for the different groups but even for different persons within the same group in some cases. It is impossible to allow the plaintiffs to bring such a suit merely because the claims against the different parties are in respect of the same property. It is not the case of the plaintiffs that all these defendants were by any one transaction made jointly and severally responsible for rendering accounts. The plaintiffs must elect against which of the defendants they want to proceed and specifically state in the plaint as to the common cause of action giving rise to their claim against such defendants. If, for instance, they want to proceed against the co-sharers, or some of them for having been placed in the management of the estate, the lawyers to whom separate payments had been made on definite accounts as alleged in the plaint, the suit is not maintainable against the latter. As against the tahsildars and other officers, if there is a separate engagement or kabuliyat with any one or more of those, then a suit for accounts so far as those officers are concerned must be separated according to the arrangement made between the plaintiffs and particular officers. This should be the principle for determining whether the suit as framed is maintainable in the present form or not. Prima facie, the suit is bad for misjoinder of parties and causas of action. The plaintiffs should have taken the earliest opportunity of making the necessary amendments and for giving up such of the parties as they wanted to, so that the suit might have been heard on the merits. Unfortunately, both the Courts below misdirected themselves in coming to a conclusion that the suit as framed is maintainable.;