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Civil Revision Application No. 44 of 1973, decided on 21st January 1974.

----S. 15‑Jurisdiction of civil Courts‑No Court, of Civil Judge having pecuniary jurisdiction to try suit, existent at time of filing of plaint District Judge, being a Court of unlimited civil jurisdiction, could, in circumstances, entertain plaint and try suit‑Section 15, C. P. C. Effect‑More than one Court competent to try suit‑Suit to be instituted in Court of lowest grade‑Section does not bar entertain ment of suit by higher Court when lower Court not in existence West Pakistan Civil Court Ordinance (II of 1962), Ss. 9 & 23.

.Sultan Ahmed Choudhry v. Mustafizur Rehman Choudhry P L D 1967 Dacca 216 ref.

Nisarally for Applicant.

Salim Qureshi for Respondents Nos. 1 and 2.

Respondents Nos. 3 and 4 (absent).

Date of hearing: 15th January 1974.

This is a Revision Application under section 115 of the Civil Procedure Code by a defendant against as order of the trial Judge, that is the learned 1st Additional District Judge, Karachi, dismissing the application of the petitioner, which prayed that the plaint be returned for presentation before the proper Court. In that plaint, which was registered as Civil Suit No. 1573 of 1972, respondents 1 and 2 are the plaintiffs while the petitioner and respondents Nos. 3 and 4 are the defendants. The suit was valued at Rs. 25,000 and therefore, so far as limits of the pecuniary jurisdiction are concerned, only the Court of the Civil Judge, 1st Class or the District Court had jurisdiction in the matter and since, of these, obviously the Court of the Civil Judge First Class was of the lower grade it was argued that by reason of section 15, Civil Procedure Code, it ought to have been filed only before the Court of the Civil Judge and not before the 1st Additional District Judge who, it was therefore claimed, had no jurisdiction in the matter.

2. Now the situation when the suit was instituted, that is in August 1972, was somewhat peculiar not merely in Karachi but in the entire province of Sind inasmuch as there was an acute shortage of Civil Judges and although there were a few Civil Judges of the 2nd and 3rd Class there was not, in the entire province, a Single Civil Judge 1st Class. Admittedly the jurisdiction of Civil Judges of the IInd Class is limited to a sum of Rs. 15,000 and therefore, among the Civil Judges, only a Civil Judge of Ist Class could have entertained the present suit. Of course the District Court, being an original civil Court of unlimited jurisdiction, would have jurisdiction and, in order to meet the situation the then District Judge passed an order the 25th August 1972, purporting to act under section 23 of the West Pakistan Civil Courts Ordinance, 1962 (Ordinance 11 of 1962) whereby he empowered various Additional District Judges to dispose of the work which would ordinarily have been filed before and disposed of by various Judges, and, territorially, this particular matter came within the limits of the jurisdiction of the 1st Additional District Judge. Accordingly the plaintiff filed his suit in this Court. The petitioner, that is to say one of the defendants in the case, then made the application that the plaint ought to be returned for presentation to the proper Court and it is as I have said against the dismissal of this application that he has now come in revision before this Court.

3. Reliance was placed upon section 9 of this Ordinance which confers powers upon the High Court to determine the jurisdiction of Civil Judges of various classes as regard the value (obviously of a suit) and upon the notification of the High Court of West Pakistan No. 124‑GAZ‑XXI/C‑35 which is to be found at page 351 of P L D 1963 West Pakistan Statutes. Undoubtedly the effect of the section and the notification in question is to determine the pecuniary jurisdiction of the Civil Judges in the manner in which it is sought to be argued by the applicant before me. Upon that there can be no doubt.

4. The next link in the argument is section 23 of the same Ordinance which provides as follows:‑

"23. Temporary vacancy of office of Civil Judge.‑In the event of the death, suspension or temporary absence of any Civil Judge, the District Judge may empower any other Civil Judge of the district to perform the duties of the Judge of the vacated civil Court, either at the place of such Court or of his own Court, but in every such case the registers and records of the two Courts shall be kept separately."

It was argued that the power of the District Judge was confined to empowering a Civil Judge to perform the duties of the Judge of another civil Court when his office is vacant by reason of death, suspension or temporary absence and that therefore, the order whereby the District Judge authorized the Additional District Judges to entertain suits of this kind was itself without jurisdiction.

5. I have not thought it necessary to decide this question because it seems to me, upon a consideration of the other argument advanced by the applicant, this case must be decided against him anyhow. He conceded that the District Court is a Court of unlimited civil jurisdiction and would therefore ordinarily have jurisdiction to entertain a suit of the value which the present suit bars. If, for example, therefore, there was no Court of Civil Judge 1st Class in Karachi, undoubtedly the suit would have to be filed in the District Court and in no other Court. It was argued however, that by reason of section 15 of the Code of Civil Procedure the Additional District Judge had no jurisdiction to try the case. Now section 15 reads thus:‑

"Every suit shall be instituted in the Court of the lowest grade com‑ f petent to try it."

Now I have found myself entirely unable to accept the argument; section 15 directs, in effect, that where there is more than one Court competent to try a suit then that suit shall be instituted in the Court of lowest grade competent to try it. Obviously, therefore it enforces a choice between Courts of competent jurisdiction and I, therefore, find it quite impossible to infer, from the section that all Courts other than the Court of lowest grade mentioned in the section is by the section itself deprived of jurisdiction. Exhypothesi the choice is being made between Courts of. jurisdiction and the section is a procedural section which directs as to which of several Courts of jurisdiction shall be chosen by the plaintiff to file his suit in. It cannot have the effect of depriving any other Court of jurisdiction.

6. In my view the language of the section is so plain that no authority is needed really to support the conclusion which I have reached but I am in fact supported by a number of cases and I think it is sufficient to refer to one only, namely, the case of Sultan Ahmed Choudhry v. Mustafizur Rehman Choudhry (P L D 1967 Dacca 216) which held to the same effect and itself recites a number of cases in support of the proposition.

7. Learned counsel for the respondent, apart from making the answer which I have in fact already given to the argument of the applicant, also put his case in another way, claiming that this application before me itself was one which did not come within the purview of section 115, Civil Procedure Code inasmuch as the Additional District Judge cannot be said to have exercised a jurisdiction not vested in him by law or to have acted in the exercise of his jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity. This is really however, merely another way of saying that there is no substance in the argument raised, that is that section 15 ousts the jurisdiction of the learned Additional District Judge.

8. In the event, therefore, I find no merit in this application which I dismiss with costs.

S. A. H.

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