JUDGMENT

1. We are invited in this rule to set aside an order made under sec. 23 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act. It appears that the Petitioner brought a suit in a Small Cause Court for recovery of money due on account of damages sustained by him because the Defendant had unlawfully taken away a goat sacrificed at the altar of the Goddess Bhadrakali. The Plaintiff claim to be the shebait of the Goddess and asserts that the interference of the Defendant was wholly unauthorised. The Defendant appears to have disputed in the written statement the title of the Plaintiff as shebait. The Small Cause Court Judge thereupon passed the following judgment:

By this suit the Plaintiff seeks indirectly to establish his title as shebait of Thakurani Bhadrakali. His status is denied by the Defendant. So the question whether the Plaintiff is shebait or not and whether he has any right to the offerings cannot be determined in this suit. The plaint be returned for presentation to the proper Court where the Plaintiff's status and title may be more fully gone into." The Plaintiff invites us to set aside this order as made without jurisdiction. In our opinion there is no room for controversy that the order cannot be supported. There-is no question of any title to immoveable property or other title upon proof of which the grant of the relief to the Plaintiff depends. The Plaintiff asserts that he was entitled as shebait to the goat which was sacrified on the particular occasion. That is undoubtedly a question which can be properly tried by the Small Cause Court Judge without any elaborate investigation into the general question of the title of the Plaintiff as shebait of the Goddess Bhadrakali. But the learned Vakil for the Opposite Party has contended, upon the authority of the decision of this Court in the case of Subal Ram Dutt v. Jagadanunda Mazumder 13 C. W. N. 403 (1909). that it is not competent to this Court to interfere under sec. 25 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, because this is not an order made in a case decided by a Court of Small Causes, so as to attract the operation of that section. We are not prepared, as at present advised, to put this narrow construction upon the terms of sec. 25, nor to adopt the view suggested by the learned Vakil for the Opposite Party that the term '' decide " in sec. 25 means "to adjudicate finally on the merits." Besides, in so far as the Small Cause Court is concerned, the case has been decided. It is not necessary, however, to examine in further detail this point, because it has not been and cannot be disputed that our powers of interference are very much wider than what is indicated by sec. 25 and that in this case we may interfere, if not under sec. 25 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, at any rate under sec. 15 of the Charter Act.

2. The result, therefore, is that this rule is made absolute and the order of the Court below set aside. The record will be returned to the Small Cause Court Judge in order that he may proceed to decide the case on the merits. The Petitioner is entitled to his costs in this Court. We assess the hearing fee at one gold mohur.