The main legal point established in the judgment is that the term 'appeal' under Article 182, Clause 2 of the Limitation Act includes revision, and the order dismissing the revision petition is considered the final order within the meaning of that article.

Venkatasubba Rao, J.

1. The facts have been fully set forth in the order of referring Judges and need not be recapitulated. The short question is, whether when a revision petition is filed, it is permissible to hold under Article 182(2) of the Limitation Act, that the date of the order in revision made by the High Court, furnishes the starting point; in other words, whether the term appeal is used in a restrictive sense so as to exclude revision petitions and the expression the Appellate Court is to be confined to a Court exercising appellate, as opposed to, revisional powers. The only considered decision directly bearing on the point is Subramania Pillai v. Seethai Ammal (1911) 24 M.L.J. 457 : I.L.R. 36 Mad. 135, which places a restrictive interpretation upon the word appeal; but as the learned Judges who have referred the question, rightly point out, that decision is inconsistent with the views expressed in numerous authoritative decisions as to the true meaning of the terms appeal and "appellate Court".

2. The view taken by the learned Judges in Subramania Pillai v. Seethai Ammal (1911) 24 M.L.J. 457 : I.L.R. 36 Mad. 135, necessitated, if we may say so with respect, their adopting a somewhat curious line of reasoning. They were faced with the difficulty, what should be the starting point when the revision petition fails; and what, when it succeeds? Logically, from their conclusion that the word appeal does not include revision in neither event should an order upon a revision petition give rise to a fresh starting point. But they were driven to hold that when the revision petition is dismissed, time runs from the original decree or order but when it succeeds, not from the original, but from the fresh decree or order, either under Clause (1) or Clause (4). This involves a certain contradiction, as the learned Judges felt compelled to have recourse to the same clause, for two dissimilar purposes; when the revision petition is dismissed, time would run from the original decree or order under Clause (1); when it is allowed, under the same clause, from the fresh decree or order. Moreover, by a sort of fiction, the learned Judges held that where the original order is modified as is sometimes done in revision, it must be treated as having been amended, with the result that Clause (4) is brought into play. It seems in our opinion somewhat artificial to hold, that modifying an order in revision amounts to amending it, when, as is well known in our processual law, the word amendment does not embrace, correction by a superior Court. There is yet a further difficulty revealed by the judgment of Wallis, J., as he then was, his decision being the one that was upheld in Subramania Pillai v. Seethai Ammal (1911) 24 M.L.J. 457 : I.L.R. 36 Mad. 135. He is constrained to hold that a revision petition may furnish not only two but three starting points, all of them falling under Clause (1):

(1) Where it is simply dismissed, time runs from the date of the original decree;

(2) Where it is dismissed with costs, from the date of the original decree so far as that decree is concerned and from the date of the order of the High Court, so far as it relates to costs;

(3) Where the decree is modified in revision, from the date of the decree as modified.

3. It seems to us that such a straining of words as has led to these contradictory and inconsistent results must if possible be avoided.

4. In Chappan v. Moidin Kutti (1898)8MLJ231 six learned Judges had to consider the question whether under Clause (15) of the Letters Patent as it stood before the amendment of 1919, an appeal lay from the judgment of a single Judge passed in the exercise of revisional jurisdiction. Clause (15) enacted that an appeal lay to the High Court from the judgment of one Judge of the High Court or one Judge of a Division Court pursuant to Section 13 of the Charter Act. Now turning to the last mentioned section, it provided for the exercise by the Judges of the High Court, of the