JUDGEMENT R. S. Pathak, C. J.:- This is a revision petition directed against an order of the trial court under Section 10 of the Code of Civil Procedure staying the proceedings in a suit.

2. The respondent wife has filed a suit before the learned District Judge, Ludhiana praying for a decree for judicial separation against the petitioner husband under Section 10 of the Hindu Marriage Act. The petitioner thereafter filed a suit before the learned Senior Subordinate Judge, Mandi for a declaration that the parties are not husband and wife. During the pendency of the suit the wife applied under S. 10 of the Code of Civil Procedure for stay of proceedings in the suit on the ground that a previously instituted petition for judicial separation between the same parties was pending in the District Court at Ludhiana and the subject-matter of that suit was substantially the same as in the present suit. The learned Subordinate Judge has allowed the application and stayed the suit pending before him. The husband now applies in revision to this Court.

3. The revision petition has been filed under paragraph 35 of the Himachal Pradesh (Courts) Order, 1948. Having regard to the grounds taken it is plainly a petition under paragraph 35 (1) (a) of the Order.

4. A preliminary objection has been taken by counsel for the wife. It is urged that the revision petition is not maintainable inasmuch as it is not a "case decided".

5. Paragraph 35 (1) (a) of the Himachal Pradesh (Courts) Order, as it stands today, reads: "35 (1) - The High Court may call for the record of any case which has been decided by a Civil Court subordinate to it and in which no appeal lies to it, and (a) if the Civil Court by which the case was decided appears to have exercised a jurisdiction not vested in it by law, or to have failed to exercise a jurisdiction so vested, or to have acted in the exercise of its jurisdiction with material irregularity........... the High Court may make such order in the case as it thinks fit".

6. The language is comparable with that of Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which provides: "115. The High Court may call for the record of any case which has been decided by any Court subordinate to such High Court and in which no appeal lies thereto, and if such Subordinate Court appears- to have exercised a jurisdiction not vested in it by law, or to have failed to exercise a jurisdiction so vested, or to have acted in the exercise of its jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity, the High Court may make such order in the case as it thinks fit." Except for the circumstance that while by virtue of Section 115 (c) of the Code the revisional jurisdiction of the High Court can also be invoked where the subordinate Court has committed an illegality in the exercise of its jurisdiction, the language of Section 115 and paragraph 35 (1) (a) is substantially the same. For the purpose of determining what is the meaning of the expression "case which has been decided" in paragraph 35 (1) (a) reference can be made with advantage to what that expression means in Section 115.

7. From the earliest years the Courts in India have been concerned with determining the meaning of the expression case decided in Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 and its corresponding counterpart in the preceding Codes. Much of the case law has been placed before us by learned counsel for the parties, and we are indebted to them for the considerable research conducted by them. It seems that the courts have differed from one another on the precise understanding of the expression case decided, and quite often in the same court opinion has varied with time. It is not necessary here to refer to the law as it developed on the point. It will suffice for the time being if reference is made to two comparatively recent decisions of the Supreme Court. In Major S. S. Khanna v. Brig. F. J. Dillon, AIR 1964 SC 497 the Supreme Court laid down that the expression need not be confine

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