The main legal point established in the judgment is the recognition of the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court to prevent abuse of the process of the Court.

Tyabji, J.

1. This application has been referred to us by Mr. Justice Sankaran Nair sitting in Chambers on the Original Side of the High Court under Rule 177 of Order XV of the Rules of the High Court of Madras. We are therefore sitting as the High Court in its Original Civil Jurisdiction and not in the exercise of the appellate Jurisdiction in appeal from decisions in the exercise of its Original Jurisdiction.

2. The application is that all further proceedings in this suit which has been instituted on the Original Side of this High Court be " indefinitely stayed under Sections 22, 23, 24 and 151 of Act V of 1908". The suit is instituted by a limited liability Company for recovering damages for defamation from the editor, printer and publisher of a newspaper in Lahore.

3. Section 22 of the Civil Procedure Code refers to cases where a suit may be instituted in any one of two or more courts, and is instituted in one of such courts. In such cases an application may be made by any defendant for transfer of the suit to another Court. Section 22 does not provide to which Court the application for transfer has to be made. That matter is provided for in Section 23. The sub-section of Section 23 which is suggested as being applicable is Sub-section 3. That sub-section however refers to the case where the several Courts having Jurisdiction are subordinate to different High Courts. One of the difficulties in the way of applying this sub-section to the present case is that the two Courts which the applicant suggests have jurisdiction, viz., (1) the Original Side of the Madras High Court, (2) the Chief Court of the Punjab, cannot be said to be " subordinate to different High Courts". The section defining which Courts are subordinate to the High Court is Section 3 of the Civil Procedure Code. Section 3 refers to District Courts but not to the High Court in the exercise of its Original Civil Jurisdiction. Section 2(4) defines a "district" so as to include the local limits of the Ordinary Original Civil Jurisdiction of a High Court; but it does not refer to the High Court in the exercise of its Ordinary Original Jurisdiction as a District Court. The collocation of words in Section 3 does not suggest that it was intended that the expression " District Court" should be applicable to the High Court, and Section 3(15) of the General Clauses Act prevents the High Court in the exercise of its Ordinary Original Civil Jurisdiction being included in the expression " District Judge" and Clause (24) of the same section defines a High Court in terms which do not throw any light on the question I am considering.

4. It seems to me, therefore, very doubtful whether the provisions of Sections 22 and 23 can be said in their terms to apply to the present case. Subject to this doubt I agree with the learned Chief Justice in his remarks on these two sections and his examination of the Indian authorities on this point.

5. The application is, however, supported before us mainly on the ground that we have under Section 151 of the Civil Procedure Code inherent power to prevent abuse of the process of the Court. The existence of the jurisdiction cannot be denied. The circumstances in which the Courts will in the exercise of this jurisdiction stay proceedings on the ground that the process of the Court is being abused are referred to and explained in Norton v. Norton (1908), 1 Ch. 471, 481. Egbert v. Short (1907) 2 Ch. 205, 210 and Logan v. Bank of England (1906) 1 K.B. 141.

6. These decisions refer to cases where the cause of action had arisen outside England and where the English Courts were sought to be given jurisdiction on the ground that the defendant was, at the time when the writ was issued, residing within the jurisdiction of the English Courts. In the case now before us the learned pleader for the applicants asked us to decide the case on the basis that it must be assumed for the purposes of this application that the whole of the cause of action had arisen in