The scope of Order 1 Rule 10 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908, and the interest necessary to make a person a party to a suit.

1. Ujagar Singh respondent No. 5 executed an agreement for sale of 31 Kanals of land in favour of Kaka Singh petitioner, Bhag Singh and Jagga Singh. Ujagar Singh is stated to be the sole and exclusive owner of the said land. Rohi Singh and three other minor sons of Ujagar Singh aforesaid (respondents Nos. 1 to 4) subsequently filed a suit against their father Ujagar Singh (without impleading either the petitioner or Bhag Singh respondent No. 6 or Jagga Singh respondent No. 7 as parties to the suit) for a declaration to the effect that they are owners of four-fifths share of the entire land measuring 58 kanals including 31 kanals of land in question in their capacity as members of the joint Hindu family on the allegation that the whole of the said land is coparcenary property. Respondents Nos. 1 to 4 (plaintiffs in the suit) further prayed for the grant of a permanent injunction to restrain their father Ujagar Singh from alienation the land without getting it partitioned and alienating anything more than his share therein. Kaka Singh petitioner and Bhag Singh and Jagga Singh respondents Nos. 6 and 7 made an application under O. 1, R. 10 of the Civil P. C. to the trial Court for being impleaded as parties (co-defendants) in the suit of the minors against their father on the allegation that they were mortgagees of part of the land and had also got the agreement for sale in their favour. By its order dated 19.05.1976, the Court of Shri N. S. Saini, Sub-Judge, First Class, Mansa, has dismissed the said application of the petitioner and of the said respondents on the ground that the plaintiffs in the suit have not laid any claim to the one-fifth share of the defendant in the coparcenary property and the applicants (the petitioner and respondents Nos. 6 and 7) can, therefore, proceed against Ujagar Singh and his share of the property to enforce the alleged agreement to sell. On that basis it has been held that they are not necessary parties to the present suit.

2. Mr. Gur Rattan Pal Singh, the learned counsel for the petitioner, has invited my attention to the judgment of a learned single Judge of the Madras High Court in Krishnamachari V/s. Dhanalakshmi, AIR 1968 Mad 142, wherein it has been held that O. 1, R. 10 (2) of the Code confers upon the Court a very wide Jurisdiction and the Court should not be disposed to a curtailment of the powers more than what to expressly decided by judicial decisions binding on it. It has been observed by the learned Judge that the Madras High Court has consistently adopted a wider interpretation of the scope of O. 1, R. 10 and in the state of authorities the contention that the expression "the questions involved in the suit" in the said provision should receive narrow view, namely, that only, questions as between the parties to the litigation and not questions between any of the parties to the suit and a third party even though touching the property which to the subject-matter of the suit, cannot be accepted. It was held by the learned Judge that in applying O. 1, R. 10 (2) the only question is whether an applicant who applies for being impleaded as a party to the suit has got a direct interest in the subject-matter in dispute which would be affected by the result of the litigation. The Madras High Court has in that case gone to the extent of holding that "the interest" that is necessary to make a person party is legal interest including equitable interest, that is, an interest which the law would recognise and uphold. The facts of that case were that in a suit for partition the plaintiffs were claiming the property to be joint family property. An application was made by a third person for impleading himself as a supplemental defendant on the ground that the defendant in the partition suit had entered into an agreement of sale with him whereby he had agreed to convey a part of the property to the applicant. On those facts it was held that the applicant should have been impleaded as a supplem