The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of statutory provisions governing the jurisdiction and transfer of cases between the Small Cause Court and the City Civil Court, emphasizing the existence of concurrent remedies and the limitations on the Chief Justice's power to interfere with the transfer of particular cases.

Coutts-Trotter, C. J.

1. These are summonses to transfer ejectment applications pending in the Court of Small Causes to the file of the City Civil Court in order that they should be tried along with O. S. Nos. 16 and 17 of 1926 respectively and to empower the City Civil Judge to try the cases as Small Cause suits. That matter was put up before me for argument, because several such applications have been put before me as Chief Justice and I was told that I alone had the power to order such transfers. I have now ascertained that this view rested on the idea that the matter was governed by Section 5 (2) of the Madras City Civil Court Act 7 of 1892. That section enacts that a Judge of the City Court shall be, by virtue of his office, a Judge of the Small Cause Court with respect to cases cognizable by that Court and that every such Judgeshall be liable to perform any duties of a Judge of the Small Cause Court which the Chief Justice of the High Court may require him to perform. In my opinion the object of that section was to enable the Chief Justice to prescribe generally the duties to be performed by a Judge of the City Civil Court when transferred to the Small Cause Court for any substantial period and not to enable the Chief Justice to interfere with regard to the transfer of particular cases and create a City Civil Court Judge a Small Cause Court Judge ad hoc with reference to an individual case. But two of my predecessors, Sir Arnold White and Sir John Wallis, did consent in particular cases to apply Section 5 (2) for the purpose of ordering matters of this kind to be tried together. I decline to follow their example for the reason that I think that if the statutes are looked at it is quite clear they contemplate the existence of concurrent remedies under the two Acts and that ample provision is made to avoid any apparent inconvenience arising from the concurrent jurisdiction.

2. The Small Cause Courts Act by Ch. 7 provided a summary remedy for an owner of property to eject persons in possession of that property which was prima facie illegal and Ss. 46, 47 and 49 of that Act provide safeguards against such a summary order precluding the determination of any question of title which may be raised in Court of appropriate jurisdiction. The Small Cause Courts Act was passed in 1882 and at that time the only tribunal which could try questions of title to property liable to be the subject of a summary order under the Presidency Small Cause Courts Act was the High Court and Sections 47 and 49 of the Act are framed in view of that position. That Act dates from 1882 and in 1892 the City Civil Court Act was passed which gives jurisdiction to the City Civil Court to try questions of title to property up to a certain value which would include the property in issue in this suit.

3. I am quite clear that the Small Cause Courts Act deliberately provided for summary remedies for possession without prejudice to the trial of questions of title in a higher tribunal. The difficulty has entirely arisen owing to the fact that ten years later the City Civil Court Act provided a new tribunal whose jurisdiction as to title was up to a certain amount concurrent with that of the High Court and it did not and could not amend the Presidency Small Cause Courts Act to conform to the altered state of affairs, because the Presidency Small Cause Courts Act was an imperial statute and the City Civil Court Act was local. It was suggested that the Madras City Civil Court Act and the Presidency Small Cause Courts Amendment Act 5 of 1916 solved the problem by virtue of Section 2 which enacts that all suits cognizable by the Court of Small Causes of Madras...... may at the election of the plaintiff be instituted in the Madras City Civil Court which shall have jurisdiction to try and dispose of such suit according to the provisions of the Madras City Court Act, 1892, and it was argued that that section enabled me to use the power conferred on me by Section 24 of th