WANCHOO, C.J.—This is an appeal by Mohanlal against the order of the Additional Civil Judge, Jodhpur, dismissing the suit brought by the appellant.

2. The suit was filed as far back as 1941. After it had been pending for about six years in the trial court it was dismissed for want of evidence and that was because the plaintiff appellant Mohanlal did not examine himself and the court had to close down the evidence of the plaintiff. It is admitted by the learned counsel for the plaintiff appellant that if the plaintiff is not examined, the other evidence on the record is utterly insufficient to prove the case for the plaintiff. Any how, after the first dismissal of the suit, the plaintiff came in appeal to the High Court of the former State of Marwar. On the 3rd of July, 1947 there was a remand by the High Court for examining the plaintiff and certain order witnesses. We would have expected that after the experience of the previous occasion when the plaintiffs evidence had been ordered to be closed, the plaintiff would have been careful this time to produce the evidence which he had been permitted by the High Court to do, but we find that out of the four witnesses which the plaintiff was permitted to produce, namely, himself, the munim of Milapchand, Lalchand and to others, Chaturbhuj and Ramchander, the plaintiff only took steps to produce the munim. Chaturbhuj died and could not be produced and time was allowed again and again for the production of Ramchander and for the plaintiffs own examination. On the 19th of January, 1949 it happened that Ramchander was not available and the plaintiff also was absent from the court. Therefore, the court again ordered on that date that the plaintiffs evidence be closed. But it seems that on an application of the plaintiff, the court was prevailed upon to give him one more chance to produce Ramchander and examine himself. This order was passed on the 19th of March, 1949. Thereafter Ramchander was never available for production but the evidence of the plaintiff was to begin! on the 18th of August, 1949. On that date the plaintiff was present in court but it was submitted on his behalf that his evidence would take a whole day. As the court was not in a position to spend the whole day on this case, it was postponed to the 24th of October, 1949. When the case, came up on the 24th, the statement of the plaintiff began but on that day the plaintiff said after some time that he was feeling ill. The case was, therefore, adjourned to 25th October, 1949. On this date the examination of the plaintiff began but then it was found that the various entries in the bahis (the number of entries was in thousands) had not been marked with slips. Therefore, in order to avoid waste of time, the court directed the counsel for the plaintiff to flag the entries in the original bahis which were to be proved. Counsel wanted time for this purpose and, therefore, the case was postponed to 28th November, 1949. It will be seen, thus, that on the last two dates the postponement was due to the plaintiff while on the 18th August, it was due to the fact that the court was told that the case would take longer than it had estimated. On the 28th November the plaintiff was absent and an application was filed on his behalf to the effect that he was ill and had gone to Amraoti for treatment. It may be mentioned that the plaintiff is a resident of Pipar in Marwar but he somehow went to Amraoti, which is hundreds of miles away in Berar for treatment. The case was then postponed to 27th February, 1950. On that date the plaintiff was present and part of his statement was taken but it could not be finished and the question arose of finding a clear day for the evidence of the plaintiff. The court then fixed 3rd and 4th May, 1950 for this purpose and directed that no other work should be fixed for those days as there was a large number of documents to be proved and all the time would be required by the evidence of the plaintiff.

3. We now

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