Wanchoo, C. J. - (1.) THIS is an appeal by Ash-karan and Keshri Chand, who were defendants in the court below, against the judgment and decree of the Civil Judge, Churu.
(2.) THE plaintiffs respondents brought a suit for the recovery of a sum of Rs. 19,999/-against the defendants appellants. THE suit was based on a mortgage deed, dated 19th June 193. 1, said to have, been executed by the defendants in favour of the plaintiffs' ancestor. THE suit was filed on the 21st of January, 1952 and the first date fixed for filing written statement was the 12th February, 1952. THE defendants' residence was mentioned at Rajal-desar in the plaint, but was said soon after that they wire at Calcutta and summons should be issued there. THE defendants were served by post, and counsel appearing on their behalf on the 12th February,1952, sought an adjournment for filing the written statement. THE court accepted the prayer for adjournment and fixed 17th March, 1952. It may be mentioned that one of the defendants Ashkaran was ill at the time and suffering from rheumatical arthritis, and medical certificate to that effect was filed in March 1952. THE defendants had applied for postponement of the date of issues as one of them was ill, and they wanted to collect some documents from East Pakistan. This was rejected and thereafter written statements was filed on the 17th March, 1922, and issues were framed on the same date THEreafter, the court fixed 18th April, 1952, for final hearing, and 4th April, for production of certain documents. THE documents were not available till the 4th and the defendants applied for further time. This application was granted and time was allowed till the 18th April for production of documents. On that date, the defendants again applied for adjournment and presented applications for summoning witnesses and getting the plaintiffs' account books produced, and for production of other evidence which they had not been able to procure till then. The court, however, refused to grant adjournment on the ground that the defendants had already been given one month's time for all these purposes, and should have taken steps much before the 18th April. Thereafter, the defendants were called upon to lead their evidence, and as they had no evidence to produce and as the burden of all the issues was on them their case was closed. The plaintiff Santok-chand then appeared in the witness box on his own behalf, and the court, after taking his evidence, proceeded to decide the suit, and passed a decree in favour of the plaintiffs. The present appeal is against this decree. A preliminary objection has been raised on behalf of the plaintiff that the appeal was not properly presented in this Court, as learned counsel, who signed the memorandum of appeal and presented it in this court, did not have the authority to do so. The vakalatnama of learned counsel, is on the record, and it says that he is being appointed Vakil of the appellants, and has been given the power to appear and do perwi for the appellants. He has also been authorised to appoint another Vakil to look after the appeal. Certain other powers have been conferred on him, but it is not necessary to refer to them. The contention on behalf of the respondents is that the vakalatnama does not expressly confer the power to present appeals on counsel, and the words actually used in the vakalatnama are not generally enough to include the power of presenting an appeal. Therefore, learned counsel was not authorised to sign and present this appeal when he actually did so on the 18th of July, 1952. The whole of this contention depends upon the meaning of word perwi which appears in the vakalatnama in the following sentence-way hamari taraf-se iss mukadme men hazir hokar perawi karenge. Learned counsel for the respondents submitts, in the first instance, that the word perwi only means pleading, and this vakalatnama only authorised counsel to plead for the defendants, and, in any case, even if it included acting, that could be only after the appeal has been properly presented in court. Reliance in this connection is placed on Batna vs. Dewa Singh (1 ). In that case, Harnsson J. made the following observations at page 734 - "counsel would have me hold that the words perwi or prosecution and jawabdehi (or reply) cover and indicate presentation of an appeal. This is, I think impossible. . . . . . . . " That case however, dealt with the power of an agent to appoint counsel and really turned on the specific words used in the power of attorney appointing the agent. With all respect to the learned Judge, we find it difficult to accept the rather restricted meaning which he has given to the word perwi. In this connection, we may refer to another case of the same Courts Mst. Balqis Begam vs. Shabzada Muhammad Hamdam (2 ). In that case, a Bench consisting of Young C. J. , and Rangi Lal J. held that the authority to file an appeal is clearly implied in the words perwi dawa (prosecution of the claim) used in the document in this case. In neither of these two cases, however, the meaning of the word perwi was considered with reference to dictionaries and authorities. We have cited them merely to show how different can be the interpretation of the word perwi in the absence of that fixed and certain meaning which is attached to the words 'act' and 'plead' in the English language. Let us look at the translation of the wards 'act' and 'plead' and of the word perwi as found in "a Concise Law Dictionary" published by Ram Narain Lal, Law publisher, Allahabad. The word 'act' has been given two meanings, and the second meaning is Sawal Jawab Kama - Perwi Karna. The word 'plead' has been given three meanings, and the third meaning is Adalat ke Rubru Mukadme men behas karna-Hujjat karna-Uzar karna. Perwi is translated as conduct, prosecution, observance, effort and perwi karna as to conduct, to prosecute, to follow. These words would show clearly that perwi cannot merely mean pleading and certainly includes 'acting' also. We may also refer to the translation of the Civil Procedure Code under the editorship of Pandit Satdeo Bajpeyi, published by the Law Press at Kanpur, where O. III, r. 4 which deals with 'acting' and 'pleading' has been translated. The translated of sub rule (1) which deals with 'acting' clearly shows that the word perwi has been used as synonymous with 'acting'. The translation of sub rule (5), which deals with pleading, shows that the word perwi has been used to mean 'pleading' also. These illustrations to our mind clearly show that the word perwi, as used in Hindustani, includes both 'acting' and 'pleading', and there is no justification for holding that it only means 'pleading'. Then comes the question whether a Vakalatnama which gives power to counsel to do perwi, authorises him to present an appeal also after signing the memorandum of appeal on behalf of his client. It Is urged on behalf of the respondents that, in any case, even if the word perwi includes acting of some kind, it does not include the very act of signing and presenting a memorandum of appeal. No authority has been produced in support of this contention. In any case, we do not see why, if perwi is the translation of the word 'acting', it should not include the signing and presentation of the memorandum of appeal also, for we find that in O. XLI, r. l. a pleader is authorised to sign a memorandum of appeal and to present it. Counsel in this case being authorised to act on behalf of the appellants was thus, in our opinion entitled to sign the memorandum of appeal and to present it, and we can see no reason to cut down the authority given to him by the Vakalatnama. We understand that in Rajasthan this is how the word perwi has been understood, and that supports the interpretation which we have given to this word. We, therefore, overrule the preliminary objection. Coming to the merits of the appeal, learned counsel for the appellants urged that the trial court was not justified in refusing to grant adjournment on the 18th April, 1952, and thus shutting him out from producing evidence in support of the issues the burden of which was on him. The trial court refused to grant adjournment as the defendants had taken no steps between the 17th of March, and the 18th of April to summon their witnesses. As a matter of fact, if the defendants had summoned their witnesses and the witnesses had not turned up, the trial court would have had to postpone the suit. In any case, the necessity for an adjournment arose because the defendants had not been able to summon their witnesses before the date fixed for evidence, and the trial court had to see whether there was sufficient reason for their inability to do so, and whether the damage done to the plaintiffs could be remedied by awards of costs. In this connection, it may be pointed out that the suit was filed in January, 1952, only three months before. The defendants, though residents of Rajaldesar, were actually living in Calcutta during this period They had already indicated that they had to collect certain documents from East Pakistan. Under these circumstances, if it took them a month to decide what evidence they should produce and what witnesses they should summon, it could not be said that it was unreasonable on their part to take this time. The damage, which had been done to the plaintiffs, could be easily remedied by the award of costs. We are therefore, of opinion that, in the circumstances of this case, the court should have allowed a chance to the defendants to summon their witnesses and produce their evidence on payment of costs. The appeal must, therefore, be allowed, and the case remanded under sec. 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure for giving this chance to the defendants. We, therefore, allow the appeal, set aside the decree of the court below, and remand the case to trial court for allowing the defendants a chance to summon their witnesses and produce their evidence provided the defendants pay Rs. 200/- as costs to the plaintiffs before they summon their witnesses. Costs must be deposited in the lower court, or paid to the respondents' counsel within two months of to-day. If the costs are not paid within the time allowed, the appeal will stand dismissed. In the circumstances of this case, we order parties to bear their own costs in this appeal.;