The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of the rules and the inherent power of the appellate court to remand a case, considering specific provisions in the law.

Curgenven, J.

1. This is an appeal from an order of 2nd Additional Subordinate Judge of Narsapur remanding O.S. No. 11 of 1921 to the file of the District Munsif of Tanuku for the admission of additional evidence. The course which the litigation took has been reviewed in his order. There was a question whether the plaintiff had secured a division and delivery of the half share in the lands which he obtained under the compromise decree in the suit of 1900. Upon that question a delivery receipt was tendered in evidence before the District Munsif and by him rejected on the ground that it was a document compulsorily registrable. The learned Subordinate Judge, differing from this view, held that the document was admissible and remanded the case for the admission not only of this document, but of some other documents for the plaintiff and also for the contesting fourth defendant. A question is raised whether this order is appealable as having been passed under Order 41, Rule 23, Civil P.C., and that necessitates a finding whether the District Munsif in excluding the delivery receipt (found subsequently admissible) can be said to have decided the suit upon a preliminary point. In the now well-known Full Bench case, Rama Nair v. Krishna Nambudri A.I.R. 1922 Mad. 505, that expression has been given a very wide construction, that it is any point the decision of which avoids the necessity for the full hearing of the suit. It is contended that wherever evidence properly admissible is rejected, the full hearing of the suit is to that extent curtailed or restricted; but I think it is impossible to accede to this argument in that broad form because it is perfectly clear that there may occur cases of refusal to admit evidence which did not in any respect thereby limit the scope of the suit; and where the learned Chief Justice in the case just quoted instanced a failure to admit tendered evidence I do not think he can be understood to have meant that in all such cases the disposal was necessarily upon a preliminary point. In my, view, rejection of evidence in order to produce such a consequence must be found to have restricted the trial of the suit, as for instance in the Full Bench case itself, where the plaintiff wished to let in evidence of forfeiture of the service tenure which the learned District Munsif refused to accept on the ground that his claim must be decided upon the construction of the document evidencing the grant.

2. In the present case it is scarcely contended that the omission to receive evidence only one piece of which, the delivery receipt, was tendered before the District Munsif, caused him to restrict what would otherwise, had it been admitted, have been the scope of the trial. I find accordingly that no appeal will lie inasmuch as the learned Subordinate Judges remand order cannot be held to have been passed under Order 41, Rule 23.

3. The question then arises whether we should treat the appeal as a civil revision petition on the ground that in passing such an order the appellate Court acted without jurisdiction, and this raises the question whether, beyond the express provisions contained in the rules under Order 41, an appellate Court possesses an inherent power to remand a suit for fresh trial by the Court of first instance. Where the appellate Court considers that for any cause, such as a refusal by the Court of first instance to admit evidence, any document should be produced or any witness should be examined, it may under Rules 27 and 28 rectify the omission itself or it may direct the lower Court to take such evidence and to send it when taken back to itself- It is quite clear that in the present case the learned Subordinate Judge might have availed himself of these provisions, keeping the appeal upon his file until the direction given to the lower Court had been discharged by the return of the record, including the subsequently received evidence. Had he inherent powers apart from these provisions to remand t