The main legal point established in the judgment is the liberal construction of procedural rules and the need to avoid sacrificing substantial justice to technicalities.

Jackson, J.

1. The plaintiff (appellant) sues the sixteen defendants on the following grounds. The plaintiffs father, a money-lender with branches of his business in Burma and Cochin China died on 24th April 1915 leaving a widow, defendant 5, and their son, the plaintiff, aged 3. The fathers cousins were one Kamaswami Chetti and the present defendant 1. The plaintiffs guardian was his widowed mother, but she let the two cousins manage the estate; and they managed jointly till October 1918, when Ramaswami Chetti died. Then defendant 1 assumed sole management, and became de facto guardian. From the time that they assumed management the cousins acted in fraud of the plaintiffs estate, and in order to promote this fraud defendant 1 appointed sundry agents who colluded with him and participated in his breach of trust. Defendants 6 to 13 were such agents. Defendants 2 and 3 are impleaded as sons of defendant 1; defendant 4 as son of Ramaswami Chetti. The plaintiffs mother is defendant 5, and his cousin is defendant 14, also an agent. These two are said to have had no real authority or part in the transactions; and they are merely added to assist in the determination of the facts. Defendant 16 is claiming right of partition with the plaintiff and is impleaded to preclude a possible plea of non-joinder. The plaintiff prays for a decree against; defendant 1 and such other defendants as may be found jointly and severally liable for accounts, and payment of such moneys as they may be found liable to pay. Accounts are specifically demanded from defendants 1, 4, 6 to 13 (13 died after the institution of the suit and his legal representative is defendant 15).

2. Defendants 1 to 4, 8 to 12, and 15 took the plea that the suit was bad for mis-joinder or multifariousness (issue 1) and the lower Court finding this in their favour dismissed the suit. Hence the appeal. The learned Surbordinate Judge - rightly directed himself that Order 1, Rule 3 is the order governing this question of multifariousness; Ramendra Nath Bay v. Brajendra Nath Das A.I.R. 1918 Cal. 858 has been approved and followed by our Full Bench in Govindaraju Mudaliar v. Alagappa Tkambiran A.I.R. 1926 Mad. 911, and in the light of that ruling there can be no question but that Order 1, Rule 3 applies to joinder of causes of action as well as joinder of parties, The Subordinate Judge says that the learned Advocate-General who appeared before him for the defendants, strenuously contended that Order 1, Rule 3, does not relate to joinder of causes of action.

3. It hardly needed the assurance of the learned Advocate-General in our Court that this is inacourate; for it would have been an unwarrantable trespass upon the time of a lower Court to argue before it that a Full Bench decision of this Court was wrong. He conceded (as indeed the Subordinate Judge also records) that Govindaraja Mudaliar v. Alagappa Thambiran A.I.R. 1926 Mad. 911 settled the matter, and the only questions before the lower Court were whether in this case there is as against the various defendants any right to relief in respect of the same transaction, and whether, if separate suits were brought against these defendants, any common question of law and fact would arise. At the end of his para. 44 the learned Judge correctly puts the question. Is the relief in respect of the same transaction? His task at this point is clearly to decide in his own mind what is the transaction alleged in the plaint, and whether the relief’s claimed are in respect of that transaction. Having done this he can then refer to such rulings as are relevant to see whether they throw light upon his solution of this question of fact. But unfortunately the learned Judge has no sooner stated the question than he becomes involved in a mass of reported decisions, and it is only by searching among his comments upon these decisions that one can discover what he regards the transaction to be. He says towards the end of para. 50 it is the assumption