The main legal point established in the judgment is the maintainability of an application under S.151 of the Code, requesting the court to restore the suit and dispose it afresh after bringing the legal representatives of the deceased defendant on record.

1. In this revision, Mr. V. Bhaskaran Nambiar, learned counsel for the plaintiff-petitioner, challenges the order of the learned Munsiff rejecting R. I. A. 344/62.

2. The plaintiff instituted O. S.285/60, Munsiff 's Court, Payyanur for recovery of amounts stated to be due from the sole defendant one Kelu Nair, on the basis of a promissory note, executed by the latter on 17 4 48. Summons in the suit was personally served on the original defendant and the suit came up for first hearing on 22 6 60. Inasmuch as the defendant did not appear nor was he represented by counsel on that date, the court declared him exparte and in turn, also passed an exparte decree in favour of the plaintiff.

The plaintiff filed I. A. 5/61 for transmitting the said decree for execution to the Cannanore Munsiff's Court. In that application he had impleaded, the legal representatives of the original defendant, on the ground that the original defendant died after the passing of the decree. The legal representatives entered appearance and filed objections to the claim of the plaintiff. They also urged that the original defendant Kelu Nair had died on 20 6 60, just two days prior to the passing of the exparte decree in the suit, and therefore pointed out that the decree being a nullity there is no decree that could be executed by the plaintiff. Therefore no transfer of the decree for the purpose of execution is necessary at all. It is seen that the said application was dismissed on 12 7 62, accepting the contentions of the legal representatives.

3. Inasmuch as the heirs of Kelu Nair had filed a counter-affidavit in I. A. 5/61 stating that the original defendant died before the passing of the decree, the plaintiff filed, on 24162, 5 applications before the trial court namely R. I. A. 342/62 to 346/62 R. I. A. 342/62 was an application to excuse the delay in seeking to set aside the abatement caused by the death of the original defendant. R. I. A. 343/62 was an application under 0.22 R.9 CPC. to set aside the abatement caused by the death of the original defendant. R. I. A. 344/62, which was treated by the learned Munsiff, as the main application and the order in which is under attack, was under S.151 of the Code, requesting the court to restore the suit and dispose it of afresh after bringing the legal representatives of the deceased defendant on record. R. I. A. 345/62 was an application under 0.22 of the Code for bringing on record the legal representatives of the deceased defendant. The names of the legal representatives, were mentioned in the application. R. I. A. 346/62, was again an application under 0.32 R.7 of the Code for appointing a guardian, for some of the legal representatives, who were minors. The maintainability of these applications, no doubt, appears to have been challenged by the proposed legal representatives, who were sought to be brought on record. In particular, the order, that was passed by the lower court, giving reasons for rejecting the claim made by the plaintiff is R. I. A. 344/62 and from the orders passed in all the other applications which are available before this Court in the records, it will be seen that in view of the dismissal of the main application, namely R. I. A. 344/62, all the other applications were dismissed on the same date. Therefore it is necessary to state what exactly was the request made by the plaintiff in R. I. A. 344/62. In this application the plaintiff had stated the circumstances under which the suit O.S. 285/ 60 was instituted and the defendant being exparte and resulting in an exparte decree being passed on 22 6 60. The plaintiff has also stated that he was not aware of the death of the defendant, on the date when the exparte decree was passed, and he came to know about the same only when the heirs of the deceased filed a counter-affidavit in I. A. 5/61. Inasmuch as, the plaintiff proceeds to state, that the defendant was dead on the date when the decree was passed, the decree is a nullity an