The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation and application of Section 14 of the Limitation Act, emphasizing the duty of the Court in returning the plaint and the liability of all defendants for the plaintiffs' dues.

JUDGMENT

Mukerji, J. - This is an appeal by defendants 2 and 3 from a decision of the Fourth Additional Subordinate Judge of 24-Parganas, by which the plaintiffs' suit was decreed against them on contest and ex parte against defendants 1 and 4. The suit was for recovery of money due as balance of the price of two waggon loads of mustard oil alleged to have been supplied by the plaintiffs, a joint stock company with limited liability, from their place of business at Berhampur (District Murshidabad) to a firm styled S.B. Lahiri and Company carrying on business at Maniktala (District 24-Parganas), of which latter firm the four defendants were said to bathe proprietors. The two grounds, on which the decree of the Court below is assailed, are firstly that the suit was instituted beyond time; and, secondly, that defendant 2 is not a partner of the firm, but that the firm belongs to defendant 3 alone. So far as the first ground is concerned, the relevant facts are the following: The two consignments were delivered respectively on 20th December 1920, and 24th December 1920. The suit was instituted in the Court of the Subordinate Judge at Berhampur on 14th December 1923. On 19th April 1926, the Berhampur Court held that it had no jurisdiction to entertain the* suit and returned the plaint for presentation to the proper Court. From this order the plaintiffs took an appeal to this Court and with the memorandum of appeal they filed the plaint as an annexure. This Court dismissed the appeal on 26th May 1927, and the judgment that was given on that day concluded with the order: "Let the plaint-be returned to the plaintiff's forthwith." On 13th June 1927, the Deputy Registrar of this Court made an order-in accordance with which an officer of the Court returned the plaint to the plaintiffs' advocate on that day with the following endorsement:

This plaint was filed along with the memorandum of the appeal in Appeal from Order No. 193 1926, of on 27th April 1926. It is returned to the vakil for the plaintiff appellant today in terms of the Court's order, dated 26th May 1927, passed in the above mentioned appeal.

2. The plaint was thus taken back. It was refiled in the Alipore Court, on the next day, i.e., 14th June 1927. If no other consideration applies to the case,, and the suit is governed by Article 52 of the Schedule to the Limitation Act, the suit,, when refiled, was, within time, if, u/s 14 of the Act, time is-taken to have run against the plaintiffs as from 13th June 1927, when the plaint was returned to their advocate, but not if it began to do so from 26th May 1927, on which date their appeal was dismissed and the order for the return of the plaint was pronounced. On the question of the applicability of Section 14 of the Act and the extent of such application, if any, the appellants' arguments resolve themselves into three heads. Firstly, it has bean urged that good faith is an essential characteristic of the prosecution of the proceeding, though such prosecution may be in a wrong Court, in order to bring a case within the terms of the section and that in this case there was, in fact, no good faith, so that the case is at once taken out of the purview of the section. Secondly, it has been contended that with the pronouncement of its judgment by this Court on 26th May 1927, the proceedings "ended" within the meaning of Expl. 1 to the section, and therefore the plaintiffs were not entitled to exclusion of any time that elapsed since then. And, thirdly, it has been complained that the appellants were not allowed an opportunity which they were, in the circumstances of the case, entitled to, to rebut the evidence which the plaintiffs called without giving any previous notice or indication in any shape or form for explaining the period from 26th May 1927, the date on which the appeal was dismissed, and up to 13th June 1927, on which date the plaint was returned to them.

3. So far as the first of these contentions is concerned, we think it is suf