Case: Mst. Gulab Bai Vs. Manphool Bai

The case for the respondent is that her husband Lal Chand had been adopted by appellant 1 after the death of her husband Phool Chand. Appellant 2 had executed a rent note (Ex. 24) in favour of Lal Chand in Samvat Year 1939. On Lal Chands death the respondent held the property as his widow and as such she served a notice on appellant 2 on May 31, 1938, calling upon him to pay the arrears of rent due from him and asking him to vacate the shop (Ex. 16). It appears that soon thereafter on August 27, 1938, appellant 2 executed a rent note in favour of the respondent (Ex. 21) but apparently appellant 2 failed to pay the rent regularly and so on January 17, 1939, the respondent had to sue appellant 2 for arrears of rent due and for ejectment. This suit was filed in the Court of Munsiff, East Jaipur. The amount due by way of arrears which was claimed in that suit was Rs. 700/. Appellant 2 resisted the said claim made by the respondent mainly on the ground that the rent note on which the suit was based had been executed by appellant 2 in favour at the respondent an her mother-in-law and that the suit was defective for want of a necessary party inasmuch as the mother-in-law had not been joined to it. Appellant 2 claimed that the respondent, acting by herself, was not entitled to claim either the arrears or to ask for ejectment. Incidentally be pleaded that the rent in question had been paid by him to the respondents mother-in-law Gulab Bai. This litigation went up to the Jaipur Chief Court in second appeal. All the Courts upheld the principal plea raised by appellant 2 that Gulab Bai was a necessary party to the suit, and so on the preliminary ground that for non-joinder of the necessary party the suit was defective the claim made by the respondent was rejected. The decision of the Chief Court was pronounced on May 26, 1941. It was under these circumstances that the respondent filed the present suit on November 15, 1943, in the Court of Civil Judge, Sawai Jaipur, claiming to recover Rs. 2,400 /- as arrears from appellant 2 and asking for his ejectment from the suit premises; and as we have already stated the respondent impleaded appellant 1 as a pro forma defendant to this suit2. Several pleas were raised by appellant 2 against the claim made by the respondent. In the present appeal, however, we are concerned only with two of these pleas. It was urged by appellant 2 that the present suit was barred by res judicata and so since appellant 1 had not joined the respondent in making the claim the suit was incompetent. It was also urged in the alternative that on the merits it should he held that the rent note had been executed by appellant 2 in favour of two lessors, appellant 1 and the respondent. The trial Court rejected these pleas and passed a decree in favour of the respondent and against both the appellants for Rs. 1,800/-. It also directed appellant 2 to vacate the premises by the end of March, 1948, failing which the respondent was given a right to execute the decree against him. Against this decree both the appellants preferred an appeal in the Court of the District Judge. The learned District Judge held that the respondents suit was barred by res judicata and so he allowed the appeal and dismissed the respondents suit. Then the matter reached the Rajasthan High Court at the instance of the respondent in second appeal. The High Court has reversed the conclusion of the District Court on the question of res judicata and has held that the present suit was not barred by res judicataOn the construction of the rent note the High Court has held that the rent note on which the suit is based was passed by appellant 2 in favour of the respondents and that the reference the name of appellant 1 in the said rent note does not constitution her into a co-lessor with the respondent. On these findings decree passed by the District Court has been reversed and that of the trial Court has been restored. The appellants then moved the Rajasthan High Court for a certificate and a certificate has been granted to them principally on the ground that the question of res judicata which the appellants seek to raise of a question of general importance. It is with this certificate that the appellants have come to this Court by their present appeal.

Reasoning:
In ordinary course we might have called for finding on issues arising between to parties on his application, but since the matter is very old we do not wish to give it a further lease of life by adopting that course. We have, therefore, allowed Dhan Kumar to join the present proceedings without deciding the question as to the factum or validity of his alleged adoption. We may also add that the question about the factum and validity of the adoption of the respondents husband Lal Chand was also put in issue in the Courts below and in fact the District Court had made a finding against Lal Chands adoption. The High Court thought it unnecessary to decide this matter. Thus there is a dispute between Dhan Kumar and the respondent on two grounds : Dhan Kumar seeks to challenge the factum and validity of Lal Chands adoption, whereas the respondent seeks to challenge the factum and validity of Dhan Kumars adoption. Both these points have not been considered by us, and so the parties would be at liberty to agitate them in proper proceedings if they are so advised. In the present appeal we propose to consider only two points, one of res judicata and the other about the construction of the rent noteIf this contention is right then the relevant issue decided in the earlier litigation would be a part of the subsequent suit, and since the Munsiff who tried the earlier suit was competent to try this part of the subsequent suit the requisite condition is a satisfied and the suit is thus barred by res judicataThe basis of the rule of res judicata is that an individual should not be vexed twice for the same cause, and the liberal construction of the word suit would be consistent with this basis; otherwise if the competence of the earlier Court is going to be judged by reference to its competence to try the entire suit as subsequently instituted, in many cases where the matter directly and substantially in issue has been tried between the parties by the earlier Court it may have to be tried again in a subsequent suit because the earlier Court had no jurisdiction to try the subsequent suit having regard to its pecuniary jurisdiction. That, it is urged, would be anomalous and inconsistent with the principle underlying the doctrine of res judicataBesides, if considerations of anomaly are relevant it may be urged in support of the literal construction of the word suit that the finding recorded on a material issue by the Court of the lowest jurisdiction is intended not to bar the trial of the same issue in a subsequent suit filed before a Court of unlimited jurisdiction. To hold otherwise would itself introduce another kind of anomaly. Therefore, it seems to us that as a matter of construction the suggestion that the word suit should be liberally construed cannot be acceptedIt would thus be seen that in dealing with S. 2 of the Code of 1859 the Privy Council introduced the notion of concurrent jurisdiction though the words used in the section were a Court of competent jurisdiction, and, it was held that the jurisdiction must be concurrent as regards the pecuniary limit as well as the subject matter. This decision proceeded on the assumption that in order to make the decision of one Court final and conclusive in another Court, it trust be a decision of a Court which would have had jurisdiction over the matter in the subsequent suit in which the first decision is given in evidence as con- clusiveIn other words, this decision would show that even though in the earlier Codes there may have been some doubt about the test of competent jurisdiction which has to be applied to the Court which tried the earlier suit, the position under the Code of 1882 is absolutely clearIn other words, it is the whole of the suit which should he within the competence of the Court at the earlier time and not a part of it. Having regard to this legislative background of S. 11 we feel no hesitation in holding that the word suit in the context must be construed literally and it denotes the whole of the suit and not a part of it or a material issue arising in itWe do not think any useful purpose would be served by referring to them. It may be enough to state that in a large majority of decisions the word suit has been literally construedthough in some cases and under special circumstances a liberal construction has been. We must accordingly hold that the High Court was right in coming to the conclusion that the present suit is not barred by res judicataThe High Court has held that on a fair and reasonable construction of the document it must be held that the rent note has been passed by appellant 2 in favour of the respondent alone though incidentally out of respect the name of appellant 1 has been introduced in it. In our opinion this conclusion is right. It is true that the rent note has been executed in favour of both appellant 1 and the respondent; but it is significant that the rent note stipulates that when the rent is paid by appellant 2 he has to obtain a receipt from the owner. The word owner is used in singular and not plural and that indicates that the rent note proceeded on the assumption that the property which was the subject-matter of the rent note belonged to one owner and not two. There is another clause in the rent note which is clearer stillThis clause makes it perfectly clear that the inclusion of the name of appellant 1 was merely formal and it was intended to show respect to the elderly lady in the family. It also shows that the respondent was treated as the owner of the property as the heir of her deceased husband Lal Chand. Reading this clause together with the earlier clause as to the receipt for the payment of rent which we have already considered it is absolutely clear that the name of appellant 1 was not included in the rent note because she had any right to the property let out but solely as a matter of respect which the respondent showed to appellant 1. Threfore, in our opinion, the contention that the rent note has been passed by appellant 2 in favour of the respondent and appellant 1 cannot be sustained. If that be the true position there call be no doubt whatever that appellant 2 is precluded from disputing the title of the respondent in the present proceedings. As the High Court has pointed out the sequence of events leading to the execution of the suit rent note unambiguously shows that appellant 2 has recognised the respondent as the lessor and as such the principles of S. 116 of the Evidence Act clearly apply.