The right of the plaintiff to choose the specific proceeding by which they deemed themselves aggrieved for the purpose of filing a declaratory suit.

Victor Murray Coutts Trotter, C.J.

1. In this case the plaintiff was in occupation of some land cultivating it by a tenant. Government claimed that it was their land, and on the 17th of April, 1919, they sent her a notice to quit under Section 6 of the Land Encroachment Act III of 1905. Nothing happened for a time. In May, 1919 the plaintiff put in a petition for a review of this notice to the Deputy Collector. On the 18th of September 1919 the Deputy Collector dismissed the review petition. On the 2nd of October, 1919 an order which amounted practically to a notice to quit went to the plaintiff. On the 22nd of December, 1919 the plaintiff filed the present suit for vindicating her alleged rights of ownership in the Civil Court.

2. The Courts below have declared that suit to be barred by limitation by reason of Section 14 of the Act which says, " Nothing contained in this Act shall be held to prevent persons deeming themselves aggrieved by any proceedings under this Act except as herein provided from applying to the Civil Court for redress." (That is what this woman has done). " Provided that the Civil Courts shall not take cognizance of any suit instituted by such persons for any such cause of action unless such suit shall be instituted within six months from the time at which the cause of action arose." Then follow two explanations : "The cause of action shall be deemed to have arisen (a) in respect of any assessment or penalty " (that is a provision under another section which I have not dealt with) " on the date on which such assessment or penalty was levied; (b) in respect of eviction or forfeiture, on the date of eviction or forfeiture. " Section 6 contains the machinery for (eviction and it is provided that a notice shall be served on the person in occupation requiring him to vacate the land arid, if such notice is not obeyed, by removing or deputing a subordinate to remove any person who may refuse to vacate the same the Collector may give effect to it. How in the teeth of that provision anybody can venture to argue that a person who has had notice under Section 6 and in spite of it remains in undisturbed possession has been evicted from the land. I cannot understand, and I do not think it can fairly be said that any judgment of this Court has gone that length. But the case is put in another and a slightly. I will not say more plausible but a slightly less unarguable way. It is said that the illustrations contained in the explanation to Section 14 of the Act are not exhaustive and that a person may be aggrieved by proceedings under this Act when those proceedings do not amount to an assessment, penalty, eviction or forfeiture. Assuming that argument to be sound, the plaintiff in this case put forward as the thing which she deemed to be aggrieved by not the notice at all which might have been a mere fulmen brutum which might have resulted in nothing whatever in the future but by a tangible definite order of the Deputy Collector received by her on the 2nd of October, 1919 ordering her to quit. How it can be said that the plaintiff must be deemed to be aggrieved by the earliest stage of the proceedings when she did not choose to be aggrieved by it I cannot appreciate. It is argued that though she says she was not aggrieved by the notice, she was obviously aggrieved by it because she petitioned the Deputy Collector to withdraw it or to review it. It seems to me that, assuming that to be so, it does not in the least preclude her from saying, "Well, if I was aggrieved by the notice in the sense that I put ill a petition against it that is not what I am questioning in this suit here. I am aggrieved and for the purposes of this suit I am solely aggrieved by the order of the Deputy Collector of the 2nd of October, 1919." How anybody can deny her the right to elect as to which stage of the proceedings she should complain against passes my comprehension. In my judgment, the Full Bench decision in Secretary of State v. Assam