MODI, J. - (1.) THIS is a civil original suit which has been transferred to this Court from the High Court of the former State of Rajasthan which in its turn had received it from the High Court of the former State of Udaipur.
(2.) BEFORE dealing with this case on the merits, we propose to say a few words as regards its history which is as unfortunate as it is revealing. The plaintiffs instituted this suit against the defendant Thikana Badi Sadri, for recovery of possession of certain agricultural lands and wells, in the Mahendraj Sabha of the former State of Udaipur in 1917 A. D. The Mahendraj Sabha decreed the suit in the plaintiffs' favour in 1929 and allowed possession of the suit property to be restored to the plaintiffs. According to the practice, however, which was in force then, the Mahendraj Sabha submitted the case with its recommendation for the approval of His Highness the Maharana of Udaipur. On 31. 10. 1933. His Highness ordered that full opportunity should be given to the parties for production of their evidence, and thereafter the case be decided de nove and appointed a special bench consisting of three members of the Mahendraj Sabha for the purpose. The case remained pending there for a period of eight years, when, on an application by the plaintiffs, His Highness the Maharana directed by his order dated 10. 5. 1941 that the case be transferred to the High Court of Mewar which had come into existence by that time. The case, however, made no headway and dragged on in that Court and then in the High Court of the former State of old Rajasthan, until 1949 when it eventually came to be transferred to this Court. It became necessary to serve all the parties again and the case was not ripe for hearing until 5th November, 1951. When it came before us on 6th April, 1953, we found that it was a huge mass of unassorted papers, and, we therefore, thought it fit to order that a paper-book should be prepared to enable us to have some idea of the pleadings of the parties and the evidence that had been led by them. On that very day however, an objection was raised on behalf of the defendant that this Court had no jurisdiction to try the suit by virtue of the provisions of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts (Procedure and Jurisdiction) Act (No. 1 of 1951), 1951. We, therefore, directed that learned counsel for the defendant should put up a proper application, if he wanted to press the point and in the event of such an application being filed, the preparation of the paper-book be taken up after that application was decided. Accordingly on 27th April, 1953, Mr. Mordia, learned counsel for the defendant, submitted an application questioning the jurisdiction of this court to entertain and try the present suit. When this application was argued we naturally wanted to see the plaint which had been filed by the plaintiffs as early as Svt. 1974, and we asked learned counsel for the parties to let us have a look at it; but curiously enough, learned counsel were unable to lay their hands on the plaint on the record of the case. It appears, from what we have been told, that the plaint has been missing for some time and from before the case was transferred to this Court. In the circumstances, we had no alternative but to direct learned counsel for the parties to produce an agreed copy of the plaint from their briefs, if possible, and place it on this record. This has been done, vide the plaintiffs' application dated 17th September, 1953. Learned counsel for the defendant has admitted the correctness of the body of the plaint produced by learned counsel for the plaintiffs. We accordingly directed that this should be placed on the record, and treated hereafter as the plaint in the case. Having given the history of the unfortunate suit in its broad outline, we now proceed to address ourselves to the question of jurisdiction which has been raised on behalf of the defendant. The objection is that the suit is exclusively triable by a revenue court under the Rajasthan Revenue Courts (Procedure and Jurisdiction) Act, 1951, by virtue of the provisions of sec. 7 and serial Nos. 10 and 12 Group B of the first Schedule thereof, and therefore, this Court has no jurisdiction to try it. The said Act came into force on 31st January, 1951. We may state at the outset that the question of jurisdiction has been raised after very considerable delay; but the objection raised is one of law, pure and simple, and goes to the very root of the trial, and, therefore, we have permitted it to raised. Turning our attention to the plaint in the case, we find that the plaintiff's case was that their ancestors belonged originally to Halwad, and accompanied some ancestors of the defendant who also hailed from that place. As the plaintiffs' ancestors had rendered many services to the defendant Thikana the latter made a grant of the village Sonpur and certain wells and lands to them. Later, in Svt. 1919, Maharana Shambhu Singhji got married to a daughter of the Jagirdar of Thikana Badi Sadri, and it is alleged that the plaintiffs' father was given in Diacha (dowry) at the time of the marriage, and the plaintiffs' family have since been living in Udaipur. Even so, Thakur Shivsinghji of Badi Sadri further granted a well and some land in village Chipi Kheda to the plaintiffs' father. It was further alleged that the plaintiffs incurred a huge outlay amounting to several thousand rupees in inhabiting and improving the Kheda with the result it came to be known after their father's name as Rati Chandji's Kheda. The contention of the plaintiffs was that they had been in undisturbed possession of the land above referred to up to Svt. 1964-65 when the defendant took possession of it in Svt. 1965 without any justification whatever. The plaintiffs, however, considered the Thikana as their Malik, and so they tried to have the dispute amicably settled by the Thikana itself but without any avail. The plaintiffs were, therefore, compelled to institute this suit for recovery of possession of the lands and wells specified by them in a list annexed to the plaint. The plaintiffs further prayed for the attachment of the suit lands, and for keeping the income thereof Amanat pending the disposal of the suit. Now it is well settled that for a proper determination of the question of jurisdiction, it is the plaint which must be looked at to discover the real nature of the suit. It is further necessary that the plaint must be read as a whole, and in doing so a court must look at the substance of the plaint and not its outward form only. It is obvious that if that were not done, it will be very easy for a party to so frame his plaint that he may evade the jurisdiction of the proper court by some kind of camouflage which no party can be permitted to do. Bearing the above principles in mind, we must examine whether the plaintiffs' suit as set out above falls within the exclusive jurisdiction of the revenue courts as contended by learned counsel for the defendant, or is triable as a civil suit. Sec. 7 of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts (Procedure and Jurisdiction) Act, 1951, provides that all suits and applications of the nature specified in the first and second schedules shall be heard and determined by a revenue court, and further bars the jurisdiction of civil courts to take cognizance of such suits or applications. The explanation to the section then proceeds to lay down that if the cause of action is such that in respect thereof, it is possible to obtain relief from a revenue court, then the circumstance that the relief as asked for from the civil court is greater than, or additional to, or is not identical with. , that which the revenue court has granted, would make no difference as to the jurisdiction of the revenue court to try such suits or applications. Next, we would advert to sec. 6 which provides for the trial of pending suits. By sub-sec. (3) it is provided that any suits, pending before a civil court when this Act came into force, which has been declared by sec. 7 to be exclusively triable by a revenue court, shall be transferred by such civil court to the revenue court competent under sec. 12 to deal with and dispose of the same. The question to decide therefore is whether the present suit falls within the four corners of any of the items of sec. 7 of the Revenue Courts (Procedure and Jurisdiction) Act, for if that be so, the suit will be exclusively triable by a revenue court. Having given our very careful consideration to this matter, we have come to the conclusion that the present suit falls within the category specified under serial No. 12, Group B of the First Schedule. Learned counsel for the plaintiffs had urged that the present suit falls within serial No. 10 of the same Group also. Serial Nos. 10 and 12 respectively read as under : - "10. For the ejectment of a trespasser, taking possession of land without lawful authority. For recovery of possession by a person who has been wrongly ejected or for compensation or for both. " We are not quite sure, however, whether, serial No. 10 would apply to the present case because, according to learned counsel for the plaintiffs, Thikana Badi Sadri could not be said to be a trespasser as the plaintiffs have looked upon the Thikana as their malik, or in other words, as a superior proprietor. It may not, therefore, be justifiable to regards the Thikana in this case as a trespasser, and if that is so, serial No. 10 would not seem to apply to the present suit. Notwithstanding that, we are of the opinion that the application of serial No. 12 cannot be excluded in the present case. This suit is undoubtedly one for recovery of possession, and is in respect of agricultural land. We further think that the suit has been brought at the instance of persons who claim to be wrongly ejected. The fact that the persons dispossessed are not tenants but under-proprietors who are more or less, according to their allegations, rent-free grantees, makes no difference as to the question of jurisdiction of the revenue courts to try this suit. It appears to us that a suit like the present would fall within the purview of sec. 183 of the U. P. Tenancy Act, 1939. It has been held under that section that a grantee though not a tenant may sue to recover possession if wrongfully ejected. It may also be pointed out that if a superior proprietor wants to resume land, which is in the possession of an bunder-proprietor for some reason according to law, such a suit would also be a revenue suit. Attention is invited to secs. 192, 195 and 198 of the U. P. Tenancy Act, 1939. A suit under sec. 183 of the U. P. Tenancy Act corresponds to serial No. 19, Group B of the Fourth Schedule of the U. P. Tenancy Act, which is more or less in the same terms as trial No. 12 of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts (Procedure and Jurisdiction) Act with this difference that the word holding which occurs in the U. P. Act does not find place in the Rajasthan Act. That, in our opinion, does not make any difference in as much as the word 'holding' covers the case of land held under a grant, as defined in the U. P. Act also, and in any case, as already pointed out above, the word 'holding' does not find any mention in serial No. 12, Group B, First Schedule of the Rajasthan Act. In this view, we do not see that there is any escape from the conclusion that the present suit falls within the first Schedule, and is, therefore, exclusively triable by a revenue court under sec. 7 of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts (Procedure and Jurisdiction) Act, 1951. 12. In this connection, we would like to explain the view taken in Nawalji vs. Jagji (1) (1952 RLW 26), which was decided by one of us. In that case the question was whether the suit was one which was filed under sec. 9 of the Specific Relief Act and was, therefore, a civil suit, or it was a suit of a revenue nature having been filed under serial No. 12, Group B, Schedule one, of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts (Procedure and Jurisdiction) Act, 1951. It was alleged by the plaintiff that he had been paying a certain amount as rent to the defendant, and it was, therefore, clear that he had the status of a tenant, and that he had founded his case not merely on earlier possession followed by dispossession within the prescribed period of six months but on his tenancy rights. It was, under these circumstances, held that a suit under this item was by a person who had some title as a tenant and had been ejected otherwise than in accordance with law. It must be pointed out, however, that the ruling, above referred to, has to be confined to the facts and circumstances of that particular case, as it was never intended to lay down that a suit under serial No. 12 should be by a tenant exclusively and not by a person claiming any other title. As we have shown above, a suit will never-the-less fall under this item if the plaintiff is not a tenant but claims some other kind of title as that of an under-proprietor, provided his cause is that he has been wrongfully ejected from his agricultural land. Learned counsel for the plaintiffs contended, however that this was a suit which was pending at the time the Rajasthan Revenue Courts (Procedure and Jurisdiction) Act, 1951, came into force, and further contended that sub-sec. (3) of sec. 6 no doubt provided that any suit, application, case or proceeding which may have been pending before a civil court when this Act came into force, such a suit or proceeding being exclusively triable by a revenue court has to be transferred by such civil court to a competent revenue court; but that this was a case which was pending in the High Court itself, which, according to learned counsel, was not covered by the expression 'civil court' occurring in that sub-section. This contention, in our opinion, is without any force. [the expression "civil court" has not been defined in the Rajasthan Revenue Courts (Procedure and Jurisdiction) Act, and cannot, in our opinion, be limited to subordinate civil courts only. As we understand, the High Court is the highest court of civil jurisdiction in the matter of civil cases and the expression "civil court" cannot be interpreted to exclude the High Court from its purview without unduly straining the language. We may further point out that the expression "high Court" has been defined in the General Clauses Act under sec. 3 (24) as 'the highest civil proceedings'. We, therefore hold that a suit pending in a High Court would be covered by sub-sec. (3) of sec. 6 of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts (Procedure and Jurisdiction) Act. It necessarily follows that the present suit must be transferred, in this state of the law, to the revenue court competent under sec. 12 of the Act to try and dispose of it.
(3.) WE, therefore, hold that the present suit is one which is exclusively triable under serial No. 12, Group B of the First Schedule of the Rajasthan Revenue Courts (Procedure and Jurisdiction) Act, 1951, and that this court has no jurisdiction to try it. WE are further of the opinion that this suit is triable by an Assistance Collector under sec. 12 (1) (ii) of the said Act, and we therefore, direct that this case be transferred to the court of the Assistant Collector at Nimbahera in whose jurisdiction the suit property is situate. In the circumstances of this case, we direct that costs incurred hitherto and in this court shall be costs in the cause. .;