The main legal point established in the judgment is the necessity for the joinder of parties and the right to relief under the Civil Procedure Code.

Patanjali Sastri, J.

1. This Revision Petition is filed against the order of the Court below refusing to strike out the petitioners name from the plaint. The petitioner who is the second plaintiff in the suit sold to the first plaintiff the first respondent herein a certain village called Puducottah which, along with certain other villages belonging to the defendants in the suit some of whom are the other respondents here, was charged with the payment of a certain annuity. In execution of a decree obtained for the recovery of such annuity, the petitioners village was sold but the sale was set aside under Order 21, Rule 89 on the petitioner depositing Rs. 7,976-9-6 in Court. The petitioner alone having thus paid the entire amount which was payable from out of all the villages charged with such payment, he claimed to be entitled to recover Rs. 2,514 by way of contribution from the owners of the other villages. Subsequently, the petitioner sold the village of Puducottah to the first respondent with all rights appurtenant thereto. The sale-deed purports to convey also the petitioners right to recover this sum of Rs. 2,514 and the present suit was accordingly brought by the first respondent impleading the petitioner as second plaintiff for recovering this sum from the defendants who are the owners of the other villages charged with the payment of the annuity.

2. In the application filed by the petitioner in the Court below, however, he alleged, that, the sale by him to the first respondent was never intended to convey his right to recover the amount in question, that the clause purporting to convey this sum also was included in the sale-deed by the first respondent fraudulently, advantage being taken of his ignorance and illiteracy and that he was impleaded as the second plaintiff in the suit without his knowledge. The lower Court, however, found that the petitioner did sign the plaint and also the vakalath executed to the first respondents pleader in the Court below and the petitioners learned Advocate has not attacked that finding before me.

3. He contends that inasmuch as there is no prayer in the plaint for any relief being awarded to the petitioner, either primarily or in the alternative, he could not be regarded as a plaintiff at all in the proper sense of the term, and his joinder as second plaintiff was improper, and the Court below should therefore have struck out his name under Order 1, Rule 10(2), Civil Procedure Code. The first respondent objects on the ground that the petitioners application was vaxatious and inspired by the first defendant (second respondent herein) who wants to defeat his right to recover the amount in question under the sale from the petitioner, and that the striking out of the latters name from the suit would be highly prejudicial to him. The second respondent has no objection to the petitioners name being struck off as second plaintiff, provided he is added as a defendant but insists that the petitioner should remain on the record, as his presence is necessary for a complete and effectual adjudication of all the matters in controversy between the parties.

4. The Court below held that the joinder of the petitioner as second plaintiff was not shown to be improper and that he had no absolute right of withdrawing from the suit under Order 23, Rule 1, Civil Procedure Code, without the consent of the first respondent and therefore dismissed the application. The petitioners learned Advocate conceded that the view of the lower Court is right so far as Order 23, Rule 1 is concerned, in view of the decision of this Court reported in Ramaswami Chettiar v. Rengan Chettiar (1933)65MLJ693 , but he urged that the petitioners joinder as a plaintiff was improper and that, in any case, as he now claims the amount in dispute adversely to the first respondent, he cannot continue to be a co-plaintiff with the latter but should be transposed as a defendant, if he could not be removed from Hhe suit altogether. I see