The capacity of the minor to raise money to pay court fees is crucial, and the convertibility of property into cash and the legally competent agency to dispose of property for this purpose are important factors in determining pauperism under 0.33 R.1 CPC.

1. Two petitions for permission to sue in forma pauperis were dismissed and have given rise to the above two revision petitions. The question is common in both the cases and the petitioner is the same in both. And so, I am disposing them of by a single judgment.

2. Who is a pauper, within the meaning of 0.33 R.1 C. P. C.? I have often felt that this pejorative expression "pauper" ill fits a statute in a republic where the overwhelming majority are absolutely poor and the scales of court fee are abnormally high. English has not been so pauperised as to be unable to find a more becoming word to describe one who has no ability to pay court fee for a suit.

3. The petitioner is a minor and has brought two suits through a next friend, her uncle, to set aside two alienations by her mother, the 3rd defendant, in favour of the 1st defendant in each case. The property is claimed by the minor plaintiff as heir to her father, Sankaran Nair, but I am not concerned with merits of the claim as the question raised in these revision petitions is merely as to whether the petitioner is entitled, to take advantage of the provisions of 0.23 R.1 C. P. C.

4. In Explanation I to 0.33 R.1 the words "other than the subject matter of the suit" have been deleted in Kerala with the result that when estimating the means of the petitioner it is permissible to include the subject matter of the suit for what it is worth. Indeed, the argument of the counsel for the respondent is that the minor has sufficient means to pay court-fee even without reckoning the subject matter of the suit and certainly will be able to pay the requisite court-fee if the subject matter of the suit is also included. This part of the argument is specious, because a minor bringing a suit to set aside an alienation executed by her legal guardian where possession also has been made over to the transferee, cannot raise any money on the subject matter of the suit as no one in his senses will be willing to buy a type of litigation with a usually poor prognosis.

5. The more serious question, however, is whether the minor petitioner has properties to raise enough money to pay court-fee. It is admitted that the minor has fractional interest in a few items of properties enumerated in the pauper application. It is also seen that the 1st counter petitioner, examined as D. W. 1., offered to purchase one out of the three admitted items for Rs. 1300/-which would be more than sufficient for the payment of the court-fee in both the suits together. The lower Court was impressed by this offer and observed:

"I do not think that this is a mala fide offer. I am satisfied from the facts and circumstances that the petitioner has the means to pay the court-fee."

What those other facts and circumstances are, are not disclosed in the judgment On a close examination of the facts we find that the minor has a share as co-heir in the father's properties, three in number. Apparently, the properties are valuable and we may assume that the share of the minor if validly transferred may fetch enough money to pay the court-fee. But the real question is not whether the assets of the minor are considerable but whether the minor can raise resources therewith. In this context we have to adopt a pragmatic rather than a theoretical approach. Mulla observes in CPC. Vol 2 Page 1396 13th Edn. "What is contemplated is not possession of property but sufficient means that is, capacity to raise money to pay court-fees and it is incumbent on the Court to come to a finding on that point " Can the ownership of property be

traded for ready cash? The Madras High Court, adopting the above test, observed:

"It is not to my mind so much a question whether they have this power in the abstract but whether in the concrete circumstances of this case they can succeed in raising anything substantial by exercising it".

Again, in another decision Ramesan J. agreed with the above observation and said that evidence would be necessary to decide whethe