Jagat Narayan, J. - (1.) THIS is a revision application by the defendant against an order of Munsif Sojat holding that he had jurisdiction to try the suit.
(2.) ACCORDING to the allegations made in the plaint the plaintiffs-respondents are the landlords of some agricultural land. The defendant took a lease for collecting rents from the tenants at Rs. 625/- per year. They instituted a suit for recovery of arrears of Ijara money in the court of Assistant Collector Sojat on 19-4-57. In this suit a plea was taken by the defendant that the revenue court had no jurisdiction to try it. This plea was overruled by the trial court and the suit was decreed. Against that decree the defendant preferred an appeal in the court of the Additional Commissioner who upheld his plea that the revenue court had no jurisdiction to try the suit and returned the plaint for presentation to the civil court. When the plaint was instituted in the court of Munsif Sojat the defendant took the plea that the civil court had no jurisdiction to try the suit. This plea was overruled by the learned Munsif. Against his order the present revision application has been filed. On behalf of the respondents it is contended that the applicant is now estopped from denying the jurisdiction of the civil court as when the suit was instituted in the revenue court he successfully took the plea that the civil court had jurisdiction to try the suit. Reliance is placed on the following decisions: - Saira Bibi Vs. Chandrapal Singh (l), Ram Khelawan Singh Vs. Maharajah of Benares (2), Sumitramma Vs. Subbadu (3), Khurshed Ali Vs. Commissioner of Tirhut Division (4) and Indermull Vs. Subordinate Judge, Secunderabad (5 ). The general rule of estoppel governing such cases is laid down by Bigelow on 'estoppel' in the following words: - "if parties in Court were permitted to assume inconsistent position in the trial of their causes, the usefulness of Courts of justice would in most cases be paralysed, the coercive process of the law available only between those who consented to its exercise, could be set at naught by all. But the rights of all men, honest and dishonest, are in the keeping of the Courts and consistency of proceedings is therefore required of all those who come or are brought before them. It may accordingly be laid down as a broad proposition that one who, without mistake induced by the opposite party, has taken a particular position deliberately in the course of litigation must act consistently with it; one cannot play fast and loose. " The above principle was applied to cases involving the question of jurisdiction in the five decisions referred to above:. On the basis of the authority of these decisions 1 hold that the applicant is estopped from taking the plea that the civil court has no jurisdiction to try the present suit. The revision application is accordingly dismissed with costs. .;