- (1.) THE background of this special appeal is that the appellant Cheluram filed a suit for declaration, possession and division of holding against the respondents. THE suit is pending. Together with the plaint an application for the appointment of a receiver was made under sec. 212 of the Rajasthan Tenancy Act. THE sub-divisional Officer Karanpur appointed a receiver on 29-4 68. An appeal to the Revenue Appellate Authority was at first dismissed in default but the case went up to the Revenue Board and came back to the Revenue Appellate Authority who eventually restored the appeal and then set aside the order of the S. D. O. appointing a receiver and directed that possession of the property be returned to the persons from whom it was taken. It was further ordered that the amount deposited in the bank by the receiver, being the proceeds of cultivation of the land, would remain under the custody of the court below.
(2.) BOTH parties filed revisions against this order before the Board. The present appellant's revision was rejected on 20-1-72 and the revision by the respondents was accepted by a single Member on 19-4- 72 and against this acceptance this special appeal has been filed. Learned counsel for the respondents, citing a larger Bench decision reported in 1969 RRD 318, says the special appeal is not maintainable on the ground that sec. 222 and 225 of the Rajasthan Tenancy Act, debars a special appeal against an order of a single Member and also because the order of the learned Member is merely one regarding the disposal of money and is not a decision within the meaning of the proviso to sec. 10 (1) of the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act. Replying to the first objection, learned counsel for the appellant says that the order of the learned Member is not an order under, the Rajasthan Tenancy Act but one under Order XL rule (d) of the CPC read with rule 3 (c ). He has cited 1966 Gujarat Law Reports 841 in support of his contention that a direction by the court to the receiver to pay money will amount to the conferment on the receiver of power to perform a certain function. Since the power to function is contained only in Order XL of the CPC, the receiver acting under the direction of the court would be deemed to be acting not under the Rajasthan Tenancy Act but under the CPC and hence the objection that sec. 222 and 225 of the Rajasthan Tenancy Act operate as a bar to a special appeal has no force. We are not impressed with this argument. It is clear that in the present case the receiver was appointed under sec. 212 of the Tenancy Act and we cannot accept the proposition that once a receiver has been appointed under the Tenancy Act and stars to function the proceedings would stand transferred to Order XL of the Civil Procedure Code. It is true that sec. 212 of the Tenancy Act does not describe the duties and functions of a receiver, and it is also true that these duties and functions are laid down in the Civil Procedure Code but this will not, in our opinion, imply that the case goes out of the orbit of the Tenancy Act. Moreover, the learned Member has made an order regarding the disposal of certain money which was deposited by the receiver. This money was under the custody of the court of the S. D. O. and the Revenue Appellate Authority specifically said in his order that the amount deposited in the bank would remain in the custody of the court. The learned Member has now ordered that this money should go back to the person from whom possession was taken, under certain conditions. It cannot be said that the learned Member has directed the receiver to do anything because the functions of the receiver ended with the deposit of money in the bank. Thus it is futile for counsel for the appellant to argue that the order of the learned Member was a direction to the receiver to perform an act. The entire proceedings have been under the Rajasthan Tenancy Act and there is no escape from the ruling of the Larger Bench of the Board that sec. 212 read with sec. 295 operates as a bar to a special appeal in cases under the Tenancy Act. Apart from this, counsel for the appellant has cited a number of rulings to clearily the meaning of term decision or judgment. The first ruling cited is AIR 1963 Supreme Court 940 In this it was held that when a review application was dismissed by a Single Judge, has order was a judgement for the purposes of clause 10 of the Letters Patent of the Allahabad High Court and hence appealable before a Division Bench. This is not a case of special appeal being made against the dismissal of a review application and we cannot see how this ruling assists the appellant. Next, counsel has cited A. I. R. 1969 Delhi 85, which is a Full Bench ruling. In this it has been laid down that in Order to be appealable under sec. 10 of the Delhi High Court Act a judgment, broadly stated, must be more than a mere statement given by the Judge of grounds of a decree or order; in other words, it must contain or embody a decision on a dispute affecting the merits as well. Another ruling, A. I. R. 1948 Privy Council 12, makes the point that where a legal right is in dispute and the ordinary courts of the country are seized of such dispute the courts are governed by the ordinary rules of procedure applicable thereto and an appeal lies if authorized by such rules, notwithstanding that the legal right claimed arises under a special statute which does not in terms confer a right of appeal. A similar view has been expressed in A. I R. 1953 Supreme Court 357, which says that ordinarily after an appeal reaches the High Court it has to be determined according to the rules of practice and procedure of that court and in accordance with the provisions of the charter under which that court is constituted. In that case, it was noted that sec. 76 of the Trade Marks Act conferred a right of appeal to the High Court and said nothing more about it. It was held that, the High Court being seized as such of the appellate jurisdiction conferred by sec 76, it had to exercise that jurisdiction in the same manner as it exercised its other appellate jurisdiction and, when such jurisdiction was exercised by a Single Judge, his judgment was subject to appeal under clause 15 of the Letters Patent of the Bombay High Court, there being nothing to the contrary in the Trade Marks Act. These rulings of the Privy Council and the Supreme Court are not applicable to the present case because they merely confirm that the High Court has to be governed by its rules and procedure. In the Bombay case, the Supreme Court held that the judgment of the Single Judge became subject to appeal by virtue of clause 15 of the Letters Patent because there was nothing to the contrary in the Trade Marks Act. In the present case, as we have observed above, sec. 222 and 225 of the Rajasthan Tenancy Act do operate as a specific bar and, therefore, these rulings of the Privy Council and the Supreme Court will not apply as the conditions are quite different. A definition of the term judgment has been given in Ghanshyam vs. Mahant Ramcharan Das reported in 1964 R. R. D. 213. It has been held therein that judgment is the final pronouncement which puts an end to the proceedings so far as the court dealing with it is concerned. In order to find out whether an order is a judgment or not the court has to look to its effect upon the particular suit or proceeding in which it is made. If its effect is to terminate the suit or procceding, the order will be a judgment but not otherwise. It may therefore be said that a judgment must finally determine some right or liability of the parties in the matter before the court. Applying this touchstone to the facts of the present case, it will be seen that the matter in dispute before the learned Member was merely the disposition of the money which had been deposited in the court by the receiver. It had already been decided by the courts upto the Revenue Board that the appointment of the receiver was without justification and this issue was already settled. To our mind the order of the learned Member does not amount to a separate judgment but is merely a corollary to the decision already taken regarding the appointment of a receiver and the handing over of possession to the respondents. In other words,it is merely a follow-up action taken as a consequence of the earlier decision. We therefore do not agree with learned counsel for the appellant that the order of the single Member is a decision in terms of the provision to S. 10 (1) of the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act.
(3.) THE net result is that, for both the reasons stated above, we hold that the appeal is not maintainable and it is accordingly dismissed with costs.;