The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of the term 'suits for land or other immovable property' under Clause 12, Letters Patent (1865) and the application of this interpretation to determine the jurisdiction of the Calcutta High Court.

JUDGMENT

Page, J. - This is a suit to recover a sum of Rs. 6,492 being part of the, proceeds of the sale of a dwelling house at Bhawalpore in the Punjab. The premises in suit are situate in the Native State of Bhawalpore, and are not within the jurisdiction of the High Court at Fort William in Bengal.

2. The plaintiffs' cause of action is set out in paras. 9-12 of the plaint.

Para. 9. - The plaintiffs and the defendant9 as members of an undivided Hindu family governed by the Mitakshara School of Hindu Law hid been in joint possession and enjoyment amongst others of the said ancestral house and premises in Bhawalpore, having inherited the same from their common ancestor the said Sundar Shah Rathi as stated above, till the same with all additions and alterations and improvements made thereupon with the advance of time were disposed of about three years ago as stated below.

Para. 10. - About three years ago the defendant Chaganlal acting for himself and as the constituted attorney of the other defendants sold and conveyed the said ancestral house and premises with the said additions, alterations and improvements thereupon part by part to diverse parties in the months of March and April 1920.

Para. 11, - The said sales were all effected by the defendants without the consent or knowledge of the plaintiffs or of any of them and he realised therefrom in all the sum of Rs. 19,476.

Para. 12. - The plaintiffs have been advised and they believe and submit that they are entitled to one-third of the whole of the said sum of Rs. 19,476, that is to say the sum of Rs. 6,492.

3. The relief claimed is:

1. Leave under Clause 12, Letters Patent (1865), of the High Court at Fort William in Bengal.

2. Decree for the said sum of Rs. 6,492 with such interest thereon as this Court may be pleased to allow.

3. If necessary, an account, and other incidental relief.

4. The defence of Chaganlal and Kanahyalal, the first and third defendants, is that the plaintiffs and the defendants are members of a joint Hindu family; that they did not sell the right, title or interest of the plaintiffs in the premises in suit, and that any interest that the plaintiffs may have possessed in the said premises has been lost by adverse possession. Sohanlal, the second defendant, by way of defence stated that the family except in respect of the said house at Bhawalpore was not joint and undivided; that the defendant Chaganlal had sold the premises in suit, and that Sohanlal had received Rs. 2,000 in respect of his share of the sale proceeds.

5. Rukmini and Mathurabai, the fourth and fifth defendants, stated in their defence that they were the widows of two of the members of the said family, and that the members of the family for a long time had been living separately, but that there had not been a partition of the joint ancestral property. They stated further that they had received from the defendant Chaganlal Rs. 1,500, part of a sum of Rs. 3,500, which was their share of the sale proceeds of the property in suit; and they denied that the plaintiffs were entitled to any portion of the sale proceeds that had been received by them. The defendants Chaganlal, Sohanlal, and Kanahyalal also denied that the Calcutta High Court had jurisdiction to try the suit.

6. The first question that arises is whether, having regard to the pleadings, this Court possesses jurisdiction to try the issues that fall for determination.

7. Under Clause 12, Letters Patent (1865):

The High Court of Judicature at Port William in Bengal, in the exercise of its ordinary original civil jurisdiction, shall be empowered to receive, try and determine suits of every description, if, in the case of suits for land or other immovable property such land or property shall be situated, or, in all other cases, if the cause of action shall have arisen, either wholly, or, in case the leave of the Court shall have been first obtained in part, within the local limits of the ordinary original civil jurisdiction of the said High Court, or