The main legal point established in the judgment is that the rule of res judicata under S.11 of the Civil Procedure Code is not exhaustive and can be applied to cases falling outside its scope. The judgment also clarified that a small cause court is not a court of exclusive jurisdiction and its judgment could not operate as res judicata on general principles.

1. An interesting question of res judicata which has occasioned this reference to a Division Bench has been debated in this Second Appeal. The unsuccessful defendant in the courts below is the appellant before us. The suit against him was for recovery of the plaint schedule house with arrears of rent and future rent, on the strength of an oral lease, alleged to have been made on 14 111955, on a monthly rent of Rs. 7/-. The defence was that the oral lease set up was not true and that the property was held on a monthly rent of Rs. 3/-, under an entrustment of 1944. Both oral and documentary evidence were adduced by the parties in support of their respective contentions. Both the courts below without going into any of these, decided the case in favour of the plaintiff, on the ground that in a prior small cause suit. S. C.16 of 1960, Munsiff's Court, Tellicherry, the oral lease as alleged by the plaintiff had been found and that the judgment in the sard suit (Ext. A-2) constituted res judicata against the defendant. The correctness of this finding has been assailed before us. Besides the importance of the question of law involved, substantial rights seem to turn on the contention of the Defendant, for, if the entrustment was on a monthly rent of Rs. 3/- as alleged by the Defendant, he would, according to him, be entitled to 'kudikidappu' rights and therefore immune from eviction under the provisions of the Kerala Act 1/1964 and the subsequent legislations.

2. That the oral lease as set up by the plaintiff was found to be true in Ext. A 2 judgment is beyond controversy. S.11 of the Code of Civil Procedure in so far as it is material, enacts the rule of res judicata, as follows:

"No court shall try any suit or issue in which the matter directly and substantially in issue in a former suit between the same parties, or between parties under whom they or any of them claim, litigating under the same title, in a Court competent to try such subsequent suit or the suit in which such issue has been subsequently raised, and has been heard and finally decided by such Court."

On the language of the section, the condition as to the 'competency' of the court which tried the former suit to try the subsequent one, is clearly not satisfied, and the bar of res judicata as enacted by the section is not attracted. But for the plaintiff-Respondent, the matter was claimed to be res judicata on general principles, in two ways: (1) that S.11 prescribed the rule of res judicata only in respect of adjudications by ordinary'civil courts', of which the small cause court, it was said, was not one, and its adjudication therefore is not hide-bound by the limitation as to 'competency' enacted by S.11; and (2) that quite apart from, and independently of, the provisions of S.11, Ext. A-2 judgment is conclusive, on the general principles of res judicata which do not enjoin the condition as to 'competency'.

3. S.11 of the Civil Procedure Code affords no warrant to import any distinction between the ordinary 'civil courts' and 'small cause courts'; nor, to regard the latter as outside the purview of the former. The expression "court" used therein, is comprehensive in its sweep to cover the small cause courts as well. Sufficient indications are available from the Civil Procedure Code, the Kerala Small Cause Courts Act 1957, and from the Kerala Civil Courts Act 1957 to conclude that the small cause court is an ordinary civil court. S.3 of the Civil Procedure Code dealing with the subordination of courts mentions also a court of small causes. Save the provisions excepted by S.7 and Order L, the rest of the Code is applicable to small cause courts also. And S.9 of the Code confers comprehensive jurisdiction on all courts to try suits of a civil nature except those, the cognizance of which is expressly or impliedly barred. S.2 of the Kerala Civil Courts Act, enumerates the classes of 'Civil Courts' in the State "in addition to the courts established under any other