Judgment.-This Civil Revision Petition is against the decision of the learned Subordinate Judge dismissing the application of the petitioner to implead the ryots said to be on the suit village as party defendants to the suit brought by the respondent.

After the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948, was passed, the Settlement Officer constituted under the Act gave notices to all the interested parties to determine the question as to whether the properties were an estate or not. After hearing the ryots as well as the landlords, the Settlement Officer gave his findings. Against those findings, the plaintiff landlord preferred an appeal to the Estates Abolition Tribunal constituted under the Act. That Tribunal upheld the finding of the Settlement Officer that it was an inam estate. Thereupon the plaintiff filed a Writ Application to quash the findings of the Tribunal. There also the plaintiff lost, but he was directed to establish his rights by a properly framed suit. The plaintiff therefore brought the present suit.

In framing the suit, the plaintiff made only the State Government as party defendant and did not make the ryots on the land, defendants. His reason for doing so is that he does not admit that there is any ryoti land involved in the suit properties but contends that the entire land is his private land. When faced with, the question as to why the plaintiff made ryots parties in his appeal before the Tribunal as also in the Writ Application, his answer is that because they were parties to the finding of the Settlement Officer, he had necessarily to make them also parties and they were merely pro forma parties.

It has also to be mentioned in this connection that after the suit was filed by the plaintiff, two of the ryots of the village came to the Sub-Court with an application that they should be impleaded as party defendants and their application was dismissed. These ryots who lost the petition did not pursue the matter further to assert their right to be impleaded as parties. The plaintiff-respondent before me relies strongly upon this circumstance to disentitle the Government’s application to make the other ryots in the village parties to the suit.

It is the contention on behalf of the petitioner before me, represented by the Government Pleader, that the substance of the plaint as also the substance of the relief claimed by the plaintiff in his suit should be taken into consideration and not the mere form which has been deliberately adopted by the plaintiff in order to have an easy way of the matter. The plaint no doubt seeks a relief only for a declaration that the provisions of Madras Act XXVI of 1948 are not applicable to suit lands and that the notification issued and proceedings initiated under the said Act are null and void. But in the paragraph relating to the cause of action the plaint avers that the cause of action for the suit arose on 30th July, 1951, the date on which the Estates Abolition Tribunal gave their finding, on 2nd July, 1952, the date on which the defendant notified the hamlets, on 21st January, 1954, the date on which the High Court was pleased to direct the plaintiff to file a suit.

It is fairly clear, having regard to the previous proceedings that the real purpose and object underlying the present suit of the plaintiff is to get an adjudication that the suit lands are not lands in respect of which any ryots could claim occupancy rights and that they are his private lands in which the plaintiff alone is entitled in his own right. Further, the fact remains that the plaintiff is seeking to set aside a finding that has been arrived at and which has been upheld at three stages, in the presence of not merely the plaintiff himself but also in the presence of as many as 8 ryots to whom notice was issued, that the suit land formed part of an inam estate and not the private land of the plaintiff. It is that finding which is now sought to be set aside by the present suit brought b

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