MODI, J. - (1.) THIS is a first appeal by plaintiffs Roopkishore and others and has arisen in the following circumstances.
(2.) THE plaintiffs instituted a suit against the defendant-respondent Jugraj for recovery of a sum of Rs. 5035. 4. 0 in the court of the District Judge, Jodhpur, which was eventually transferred to the court of the Civil Judge, Jodhpur. THE suit was originally based on an acknowledgment. THE learned Civil Judge dismissed the suit by his judgment dated 18th September, 1950. THE plaintiffs went up in appeal to the District Judge, Jodhpur, who allowed the appeal and remanded the care to the trial court with a direction that they be allowed to amend their plaint within one month of the record reaching the trial court and that that court would then proceed to try the suit according to law. This happened on 27th September, 1951. It appears that the record reached the trial Judge on the 27th October, 1951, whereupon he passed an order the case be put up before him with the application for amendment when filed. It may be pointed out that the trial court did not give any notice to the parties of the record having reached that court. THEreafter, on 10th January, 1952, learned counsel for the defendant brought the whole matter to the notice of the court, and the case was sent for and put up in the presence of learned counsel for the plaintiffs. THE submission of learned counsel for the defendant was that as no application for amendment had been put up within the time allowed by the court, the case be consigned to the record room. Learned counsel for the plaintiffs on the other hand contended that he had received no notice of the record having reached the court and, therefore, he was within his rights to put in the amended plaint even at that time, and within one month of the receipt of information by him, and the case was directed to be put up for orders on 5th February, 1952. On the later date, learned counsel for the plaintiffs filed the amended plaint praying that the time of one month allowed by the appellate court should be computed from 10th January, 1952, being the date on which he came to know of the record having reached the trial court. He also prayed in the alternative that if his aforesaid plea was not accepted, then time may be extended from the date of the receipt of the record by the trial court up to the date of the presentation of the amended plaint. THE trial court declined to accept either of the two prayers made on behalf of the plaintiffs and dismissed the suit on 6th February, 1952. This is an appeal from that judgment. It may be pointed out that an application was filed in the meantime on behalf of the plaintiffs to the District Court for extension of time which had already been fixed by that court by its appellate judgment and decree ; but it appears that that application was dismissed for default on 16th July, 1952. It is urged by learned counsel for the plaintiff appellants that the lower court had erred in not accepting the amended plaint when filed on 5th February, 1952. Reliance was placed on the ground that the court below had not given any notice of record having reached that court and, therefore, it was not possible to file the amended plaint earlier than when learned counsel did. This argument, in our opinion, is devoid of all force. We are unable to accept the plea that it was the duty of the court below to have issued a notice to the parties, of the record having reached that court. It is another matter that that court may have notified the parties if it so wished We have no doubt that it was the duty of the plaintiffs to have made necessary inquiries into the matter and filed the amended plaint within the time allowed to them by the District Court. It was, therefore, incumbent upon the plaintiffs or their learned counsel to have found out if and when the case had reached the trial court. As it happened, the case took exactly one month to reach the trial court and the plaintiffs had another month within which to file the amended plaint, and if they failed to make necessary inquiries and to put in the amended plaint within the time allowed to them, they were clearly themselves to blame. We, therefore, over-rule this contention. As regards the contention that the trial court was empowered to extend the time from the date of the receipt of the record to the date of the presentation of the amended plaint, we are of opinion that the trial court was right in its view that it had no authority to extend the time which was in this case fixed by the appellate court. Learned counsel placed his reliance on O. VI, r. 18 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which reads as follows: - "if a party who has obtained an order for leave to amend does not amend accordingly within the time limited for that purpose by order, or if no time is thereby limited then within fourteen days from the date of the order, he shall not be permitted to amend after the expiration of such limited time as aforesaid or of such fourteen days, as the case may be, unless the time is extended by the Court. " It seems to us that under this provision of law, time can be extended by the court which granted it. But in this case, time was granted not by the trial court but by the District Court. Besides, we are of the view that when time is granted for the doing of a thing by a superior court and embodied in the decree of that court, it is not open to a court subordinate thereto to extend that time. O. XX, r. 3 C. P. C. prevents a court from altering its decree except where there is a clerical or other error under sec. 152 C. P. C. or on review. A fortiori, therefore, the court of inferior jurisdiction cannot be allowed to alter or extend time granted by the superior court. We are also of the opinion that sec. 148 C. P. C. cannot be used to nullify this rule. Learned counsel for the appellants relied on Ma E Nyein vs. Ma Ma Gvi (1) (AIR 1935 Ran. 500. ). In that case, however, time had been granted by the trial court in the first instance, and it was that very court which had allowed the extension applied for. That case, therefore, cannot help the appellants. We were next referred to Bodh Roj vs. Imam Din (2) (AIR 1932 Lah. 235. ). In that case the High Court had remanded the suit on 11th January, 1926, with the direction that the plaintiffs should make good the deficiency of court-fee "within ten days of the case reaching the trial court. " It was held that it was not intended that the period of ten days should commence from the date on which the record reached the ministerial officer of the Subordinate Judge and further that the Subordinate Judge having passed an order on 13th February, 1926 directing the plaintiffs so appear on 15th February, 1926, and then asked them to deposit the requisite court-fee within ten days from that date and the court-fee was duly paid on 23rd February, 1926, the successor Subordinate Judge who rejected the plaint on 11th November, 1927, was wrong. This case is also distinguishable inasmuch as the record having reached the trial court in the present case on the 27th October, 1951, that court had passed an order on that very date that the case be* put up to it with the application for amendment when filed, but nothing was done within one month from that date. As already stated above, the plaintiffs filed their amended plaint as late as 5th February, 1952. It is also worthy of notice that in the Lahore case, after the record had been received from the High Court, the case was tried on the merits, both parties had produced their evidence, and the case was fixed for hearing of arguments when then Subordinate Judge rejected the plaint on 11th November, 1927, on the ground that the deficiency in the court-fee was made up after the expiry of the period fixed for the purpose. We are of opinion that the Lahore case was decided on its special facts and is not applicable to the facts of the present case. We therefore, hold that the learned Civil Judge had no authority to enlarge the time fixed by the appellate decree of the District Court. It, was next contended by learned counsel for the appellants that even if the trial court had no jurisdiction to grant any extension of time, this Court had certainly authority to do so in this first appeal and should exercise its discretion in favour of the plaintiffs, in the circumstances of the case. After a careful consideration, we have come to the conclusion that the prayer made on behalf of the plaintiffs is without any merit and that we have no jurisdiction in law for granting it. There can be no question that in a proper case, this court has undoubtedly power, as the final Court of Appeal to grant an extension of time where the circumstances of the case may warrant this being done. We have already stated the circumstances in which the plaintiffs came to file their amended plaint as late as 5th February 1952. The record had reached the trial court in a month's time on 27th October, 1951, and the plaintiffs had ample time within which to file their amended plaint; but they took more than three months to do so. The plaintiffs had no justification whatever for allowing all this time to pass without doing anything. They knew perfectly well on 27th September, 1951, that they had been allowed one month's time to file an amended plaint from the date of the arrival of the record in the trial court. They did nothing, however, until the 10th January, 1952, on which date even it was learned counsel for the defendant who brought the matter to the notice of the court. The contention of learned counsel for the appellants, that they were entitled to file the amended plaint within one month of notice from the trial court of the record having reached it, is wholly untenable and the more so because the order of the appellate court, as embodied in its decree, was that the amended plaint must be filed within one month of the reaching of the record in that court. If we were to accept the contention of learned counsel for the plaintiff-appellants, then we would be substituting the decree of that court to say that the plaintiffs were required to file their amended plaint within one month of the notice of the record having reached that court. We see no justification for doing anything of the kind. We are clearly of the opinion that in this case the plaintiffs were guilty of gross negligence and, therefore, we have no valid grounds for granting the extension prayed for. Learned counsel relied on Gurmit Singh vs. Labhu Ram (1) (A. I. R. 1952 Pepsu, 42) in this connection. We need only point out that in that case the High Court was of opinion that the plaintiff was persuing his remedies in the higher courts after the District Judge had allowed the plaintiff to amend the plaint within a specified time, and that in doing so, he was only exercising his rights and could not at all be blamed in the matter. It was, therefore, held that "if an appellate Court, while remanding a case to the trial court limits the time within which the plaintiff is to amend his plaint, and if the suit is dismissed because the plaintiff could, for no fault of his, not comply with the direction, the appellate Court can, when the case again comes before it in appeal, extend the time. " The facts of the present case are entirely different from that of the Pepsu case, although we may add that on the other points that case has laid down the same principles of law which we have held above. We may also point out that ordinarily when an amendment of a plaint is refused, it would still be open to a plaintiff to peruse his case on the original cause of action and the whole case need not be dismissed; but we find that, in the present case, it is impossible for the plaintiffs to carry on their original suit in the absence of an amended plaint as the view of this Court has authoritatively been laid down by a Full Bench that a suit cannot lie on the basis of an acknowledgment, and, therefore, the learned Civil Judge was right in dismissing the plaintiff's suit. The result is that this appeal fails and is hereby dismissed with costs. . ;