JUDGMENT - B.N. DESHMUKH, J.:---This is plaintiffs appeal arising out of the orders passed in Notice of Motion by the City Civil Court which was set aside in Appeal from Order No. 264/76 by a learned Single Judge of this Court. Being aggrieved, he has filed this Letters Patent Appeal.

It is not necessary to notice the facts in detail, though they may be mentioned very briefly to know the nature of the order that was passed by the First Appellate Court. The plaintiff claims to be the sub-tenant of certain premises in this town which were allowed to be used by the defendant jointly under an agreement dated September 28, 1970. According to the plaintiff, the defendant has merely been given licence for joint user along with him in the same premises. Since the plaintiff was being disturbed by the defendant in their joint possession and user, he filed the present Suit No. 1106/75 in the City Civil Court at Bombay. The substantive prayer in the suit is that the plaintiffs joint possession should be held proved and the defendant should be restrained by an order of permanent injunction of the Court from interfering with that joint possession. The defendant is denying these allegations.

After filing the suit, the plaintiff issued a Notice of Motion dated August 20, 1975, and asked for an interim injunction. At the final hearing of the Motion after considering the affidavits of either side, the agreement dated September 28, 1970, and after considering the arguments addressed on both the sides, the learned trial Judge made the Notice of Motion absolute in terms of prayer (a).

The defendant filed an appeal in the High Court as an Appeal from order. A learned Single Judge of this Court, after hearing the parties and after going through the affidavits filed on behalf of both the sides and more particularly considering the nature, type and dimensions of the premises, found that joint possession seems to be very difficult to uphold on the material as at present available in the suit. The consequence was that the plaintiffs case about joint possession was not accepted as prima facie proved and the order passed in the Notice of Motion was vacated. Being aggrieved by that order, the present appeal has been filed.

Before going to the merits of the matter, a preliminary objection is raised to the maintainability of the appeal itself. It is urged that the order of the learned Single Judge refusing to assist the plaintiff by giving an interim injunction pending the disposal of the suit on merits is not a judgments at all within the meaning of that expression used in Clause 15 of the Letters Patent. If that is so, the appeal itself is not maintainable.

On behalf of the respondent a long line of judgments of this Court have been cited. To suggest what precisely is being indicated as a judgment by this Court in Clause 15 of the Letters Patent on behalf of the appellant Mr. Meghani relied upon certain observations of Tendolkar, J. in a Division Bench judgment in (S.H.H. Kably v. Mahomed T. Jaffrani)1, A.I.R. 1958 Bom. 210. In view of this preliminary objection, it would be necessary to find whether the order under appeal is a judgment as required by Clause 15 of the Letters Patent and whether the appeal itself is maintainable. The meaning of the word judgment used in Clause 15 of the Letters Patent is a subject matter of a long line of judgments of this Court. It does not seem to be necessary to do any fresh thinking on the subject. The various aspects of that proposition have already been considered and answered by the judgments of this Court from time to time.

One of the judgments to which we may refer and which introduces the concept of that expression is one (Mansata Film Distributors v. Sarab Modi)2, 57 Bom.L.R. 228. The order under appeal before the Division Bench restrained the defendant in the suit from prosecuting his separate and independent suit in the Calcutta High Court and it was that order which was being challenged in the Letters Patent

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