Complex legal issues should be addressed through proper trial proceedings with pleadings and evidence, rather than through applications to revoke leave or take the plaint off the file.

JUDGMENT

Rankin, C.J. - In this case, the plaintiffs sued the Secretary of State for India in Council in respect of two consignments of jute which they delivered to the railway at Poradah station for carriage to Cossipore Road station, both these stations being outside the ordinary original civil jurisdiction of this Court. It was found, according to the plaint, that the jute had been damaged by fire on 21st March 1927 and the plaintiffs sued for a sum of Rs. 11,000 putting their case as of damages, first of all, for the railway's failure to deliver the jute and, secondly, for the misconduct of the railway in not taking reasonable care of it. The defendant, the Secretary of State for India in Council, having been served with the writ of summons took out a summons dated 9th April 1930 requiring the plaintiffs to attend before the Judge for an order that the " leave granted under Clause 12, Letters Patent, to file the plaint in the above suit in this Hon'ble Court be revoked and that the plaint be taken off the file."

2. Now, it appears that this application was put upon two grounds. First of all,, it was said that the Court had no jurisdiction to entertain the suit because the Secretary of State for India in Council did not carry on business within the jurisdiction and no part of the plaintiffs' cause of action arose within the jurisdiction; and secondly, it was said that the plaintiffs' claim was barred by limitation being governed by Article 30 or Article 31 of the Schedule to the Limitation Act, which prescribes a period of one year for the purpose of bringing a suit.

3. I do not doubt that in a proper case an application to revoke the leave granted under Clause 12, Letters Patent, may be entertained by the Court. I do not doubt also that, in a case where the] plaint discloses a clear case of the suit! being barred under the Limitation Act, it is open to a party to treat the suit as one which ought never to have been brought and ask the Court acting under Order 7, Civil P.C., to take the plaint off the file and return it to the plaintiff for amendment. In this case, the parties! when they got before the learned Judge appear to have laid before him and entered into a discussion on several extremely difficult and far-reaching questions--questions which, to my way of thinking may turn out--I do not say they do--to depend upon facts or are at least questions of mixed fact and law.

4. The first question is whether it can be said that the Secretary of State for India in Council is a person who carries on business within the moaning, of that expression in Clause 12, Letters Patent. According to certain rulings he can never carry on business. The other view of the case law is that at the time of the previous decisions the Secretary of State was not in fact carrying on business as distinct from carrying on the necessary work of governing the country. The view taken by the learned Judge is that at all events under modern conditions the old rulings holding that the Secretary of State for India in Council does not carry on business no longer apply. That seems to me to be a most important question and a question which on the face of it depends to some extent, on facts.

5. The learned Judge has held that as there is a provision in the Indian Railways Act which says that the plaintiffs cannot recover damages unless they give a certain notice which they had to give in this case in Calcutta that notice is a part of the cause of action and therefore a part of the plaintiffs' cause of action arose in Calcutta. Learned Counsel for the defendant contests that proposition very strongly. It is a proposition which has been accepted by the learned Judge. Again the learned Judge has held that Art 115, Lim. Act, is applicable. It does seem to me rather monstrous that in a lease where there is a serious question on these points to be decided it should be raised by an application to take the plaint off the file. If there is anything to try it {should be trie