R.147A of the High Court Rules is meant to be observed at the time of filing the Original Petition and does not allow a stranger to be added as one of the petitioners after the filing of the Original Petition.

1. This Civil Miscellaneous Petition has been filed by a stranger. He prays that he may be impleaded as one of the petitioners in the Original Petition. The prayer in the Original Petition filed under Art.226 of the Constitution of India it for a writ of mandamus directing the Commissioner, Corporation of Cochin and the Director of Municipal Administration (who are the respondents) to absorb the three petitioners as permanent Syranks in Vypeen Ferry Service under the Corporation of Cochin. The person who filed the present CMP. wants to get in as the fourth petitioner. The application is opposed mainly on the ground that the applicant has no right to get himself added to as one of the petitioners.

2. The application has been filed purportedly under R.147A of the Rules of the High Court of Kerala, 1971 (for short the High Court Rules). R.147A is extracted below:

"more persons than one may join in one writ petition as petitioners in whom any right to relief in respect of or arising out of the same act or transaction or series of acts or transactions is alleged to exist, whether jointly, severally or in the alternative, where, if such persons present separate writ petitions, any common question of law or fact would arise provided that each person joining in such writ petition shall pay the court-fee payable under Art.11(2) of Schedule.2 of the Kerala Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act, as if each of them had tiled a separate writ petition."

3. A reading of the rule shows that it is meant to be observed at the time of filing the Original Petition. The words "more persons than one may join in one writ petition as petitioners" are indicative of the joint action to be exercised by more than one person while filing the Original Petition. The interpretation that the rule enables a stranger to get himself added to as one of the petitioners after the filing of the Original Petition does not appear to be sound on the language employed in the rule. There is no provision in the High Court Rules similar to 0.1 R.10(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure as per which the Civil Court has power to add "the name of any person who ought to have been joined, whether as plaintiff or defendant." Absence of a similar provision in the High Court Rules is of no practical consequence for any other person since it is open to him to file a separate Original Petition for reliefs which he claims.

4. R.152 of the High Court Rules provides for the issuance of notice of the Original Petition to any person who has not been made a party thereto. But such person who receives the notice has only the right of being heard. R.148 provides for making all persons directly affected as parties to the petition and that power includes adding of parties as respondents. A single judge of this Court has pointed out in Mariamma Punnose v. Tahsildar, Kunathunad (1979 KLT 327) that the main purpose of R.147A "is to enable litigants having a common grievance to be redressed to join together in a single petition, provided they pay court fee as if they were filing independent petitions."

5. The learned counsel contended that if the applicant could have joined as one of the petitioners while filing the Original Petition it does not stand to reason that he cannot be allowed subsequently to get himself added to the list of petitioners, provided other conditions in the rule are satisfied. The stranger applicant, who did not become one of the petitioners at the time of filing the Original Petition, would have been left out either because of the refusal of the others to associate him with them, or because he himself refused to associate with the others initially, or because the petitioners did not consider him at all. Such a person cannot come after the filing of the Original Petition for permission to join others in the action. The decision of a stranger to get added to the lilt of petitioners cannot be said to be an exercise in which he and other petitioners have joined together. His