( 1 ) THIS is a writ petition filed by three persons praying for an appropriate writ to direct the first respondent who is the President of the Baroda Borough Municipality to desist from preventing the petitioners from acting as councillors of the Baroda Municipality.

( 2 ) THE facts relevant for the purpose of deciding this petition are as under :the three petitioners are councillors of Baroda Borough Municipality. On 9-3-61 they sent a letter of resignation from the Sanitary Committee addressed to the President as a protest against the manner of implementation of the scheme of compulsory vaccination for small-pox. This letter was treated by the President as a letter of resignation as councillors and not as a letter of resignation from the Sanitary Committee of which the three petitioners happened to be members. On 10-3-61 the President wrote a letter to the three petitioners acknowledging receipt of their letter dated 9-3-61 and entertaining certain hopes although they were going out of the Municipality. The three petitioners sent individual letters on 11-3-61 asserting that they had not resigned from the Municipality but they had resigned only from the Sanitary Committee. On these facts the petitioners approached the High Court for an appropriate writ to direct respondent No. 1 the President of the Municipality not to take any steps on the assumption that letter of resignation dated 9-3-61 is a letter of resignation from the Municipality and not from the Sanitary Committee of the Municipality.

( 3 ) A preliminary objection is raised on behalf of the respondents that in these circumstances a joint petition is not maintainable and he relied on Muhammad Ibrahim v. The Deputy Commercial Tax Officer Pudukottal A. I. R. 1956 Madras 626 and In re: Atmakuri Gopal Krishnarao A. I. R. 1957 Andhra Pradesh 88 In reply it is contended by the learned counsel for the petitioners that the contention that a joint petition does not lie has not been pleaded in the reply to the petition. But as the contention relates to the form of the petition itself and as it can be decided by looking at the petition alone we allow this point to be argued.

( 4 ) ON behalf of the petitioners it is urged that Order 1 Rule 1 C. P. Code applies to writ petitions filed in the High Court. To decide this point it is necessary to consider first whether a High Court when dealing with writ petitions is a Court of Civil Judicature because the preamble to C. P. Code provides that the C. P. Code consolidates and amends the law of procedure relating to Courts of Civil Judicature. This again turns upon the questions whether when deciding writ petitions the High Court is dealing with civil matters or is enforcing civil rights.

( 5 ) THE word civil is not defined in the C. P. Code. The distinction between civil and criminal is thus explained by Salmond: In Salmond on Jurisprudence Eleventh Edition by Glanvile Williams it is observed as follows:civil justice is administered in one set of courts criminal justice in a somewhat different set. The outcome of the proceedings too is generally different. Civil proceedings if successful result in a judgment for damages or in a judgment for the payment of a debt or (in a penal action) a penalty or in an injunction or decree of specific restitution or specific or in an order for the delivery of possession of land or in a decree of divorce or in an order of mandamus prohibition or certiorari or in a writ of habeas corpus or in other forms of relief known distinctively as civil. Criminal proceedings if successful result in one of a number of punishments ranging from hanging to a fine or in a binding over to keep the peace release upon probation or other outcome known to belong distinctively to criminal law.

( 6 ) IT is true that if an injunction is granted in a civil proceeding and it is disobeyed the person disobeying the order may be imprisoned. Yet the proceeding for an injunction is a civil proceeding and not criminal S