The right to continue an application for leave to sue in forma pauperis does not survive to the legal representative of the deceased applicant, as it is a personal right.

Srinivasa Aiyangar, J.

1. The respondent in this civil revision petition has not appeared and therefore on behalf of the petitioner it has been argued ex parte. But giving the matter such consideration as I have-been able to give I have come to the conclusion that the order of the lower Court was clearly wrong and without jurisdiction. The petitioner in this Court was respondent in a petition for leave to sue in forma pauperis. Pending the disposal of that petition the petitioner died, and thereupon the respondent in this Court applied to the lower Court as the mother and legal representative of the deceased petitioner to be brought on the record as the legal representative of the deceased petitioner, and for being allowed further to prosecute the petition. I do not see anything in the petition itself to the effect that she was either prepared to continue the proceedings paying the necessary Court-fee in respect of the petition allowing the same being treated as a plaint or anything to show that she herself was a pauper. The learned Subordinate Judge allowed the petition, and directed that the respondent in this Court be brought on the record as such legal representative. The petition for leave to sue in forma pauperis is undoubtedly a personal application on a personal ground. If there can be anything that can be set up or regarded as a cause of action for such a petition it cannot possibly be conceived of as surviving to the legal representative. There is the direct authority of the Calcutta High Court in the matter. In Lalit Mohan Mandal v. Satish Chandra Das [1906] 33 Cal. 1163, Ghose, C.J., and Caspersz, J., held that where there is only an application for leave to sue in forma pauperis, but no suit pending in Court, land the applicant dies before the leave is [granted, the right to sue as a pauper, being a personal right, cannot survive in (the legal representative of the deceased applicant. I am in entire agreement with the decision in that case.

2. The learned Subordinate Judge in the Court below seems for some reason to have regarded my decision in Sivagami Ammal v. Gopalaswami Udayar A.I.R. 1925 Mad. 765, as an authority for the position that the right to continue the application in such circumstances survives to the legal representative. In that case the petition to sue in forma pauperis had been allowed, and the matter was registered as a suit. It was during the pendency of the suit that the plaintiff died. In those circumstances it clearly followed that in a proceeding which was properly pending as a suit in Court if the plaintiff should die undoubtedly the legal representative may be brought on the record. I do not see what the principle of that decision has to do with the question which came up for consideration before the learned Subordinate Judge. There is also in the case A.S. Radhakrishna Iyer, petitioner: AH India Reporter 1925 Mad. p. 819, a decision by Mr. Justice Jackson, directly to the effect that there is no right in the legal representative of a pauper applicant to continue the application itself for being allowed to sue in forma pauperis. All that the learned Judge in that case stated was that there was no objection to the legal representative being brought on the record because the legal representative might offer to continue the proceedings transforming it into a suit by payment of the requisite Court-fee. I see no offer or indication in the present case of any such sort.

3. I am quite conscious that there might be serious difficulties about limitation if a petition for leave to sue in forma pauperis should not be allowed to be continued by the legal representative even on payment of the Court-fee, the theory being that if he is allowed to sue in forma pauperis ultimately the date of the presentation of the petition itself is treated as the date of the presentation of the plaint or the institution of the suit. If therefore the respondent had appeared in this case, and made any such offer, I s