The discretion to implead parties under Order 1 Rule 10(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure should be exercised judicially and on well-established principles.

1. The land for the possession of which the plaintiffs-appellants filed the instant suit was originally sold by Harnam Singh on October 16, 1930, to Lal Singh and Hira Singh. Buta Singh, the father of the plaintiffs-appellants, successfully challenged the alienation and got the usual declaratory decree on June 18, 1934, to the effect that the alienation would not bind them, and would not affect their reversionary interest. Harnam Singh subsequently died and the date of his death is in dispute. The plaintiffs-appellants did not even mention any precise date of his death in the plaint, dated April 25, 1967, wherein they merely said that Harnam Singh had died about a week earlier. That plea has been interpreted by the appellants to suggest that Harnam Singh had died on or about April 18, 1967, though in the course of arguments at the earlier stage of this case, they had sometime suggested April 16, 1967, as the date of his death possibly on the basis of some deposition in the trial Court. In the suit which has given rise to this appeal, which was, as already stated, filed on April 25, 1967, for possession of the land in dispute against the successors of the original alienees, one of the defences was of limitation which gave rise to the framing of issue No. 3. The defendants pleaded that Harnam Singh had died more than 3 years prior to the institution of the suit.

2. During the pendency of the suit in the trial Court, Mst. Ind Kaur, who is admittedly the daughter of the paternal uncle of the plaintiffs-appellants, filed an application for being impleaded as a party. That application was opposed by the plaintiffs who went to the length of denying at that stage even her relationship with the deceased. On account of the contest raised by the plaintiffs, an issue about Ind Kaur being or not being a necessary party to the suit was framed, which was decided against her by the order of the trial Court, dated January 1, 1968. The suit was ultimately dismissed by the judgment and decree of the trial Court, dated March 1, 1968, as being barred by time, on the basis of the trial Court s finding on issue No. 3.

3. During the pendency of the plaintiffs-appellants appeal in the Court of the Additional District Judge, Ferozepore, an application was made by the plaintiffs on August 21, 1969, for leave to implead Ind Kaur as a co-plaintiff, on the ground that the plaintiffs had then admitted her relationship as found by the trial Court, and alleged that she was a necessary party to the suit. Ind Kaur herself made a similar application before the first Appellate Court on December 2, 1969. By its order, dated April 17, 1970, the first Appellate Court allowed the application of the plaintiffs, and the application of Ind Kaur on the ground that she was a necessary party in view of the judgment of their Lordships of the Supreme Court in Giani Ram V/s. Ramji Lal, AIR 1969 SC 1144, and set aside the decree of the trial Court and remanded the suit to the original Court for retrial. The appeal of the defendants-respondents against the order of the first Appellate Court, dated April 17, 1970, was allowed by a learned Single Judge of this Court on September 17, 1971, on three grounds, namely:-

(i) that the order of the trial Court refusing to implead Ind Kaur as a party to the suit barred the application of Ind Kaur and that of the plaintiffs in the lower Appellate Court on principles of res judicata;

(ii) that Ind Kaur was not a necessary party and should not have been impleaded by the lower Appellate Court; and

(iii) that even if Ind Kaur was a necessary party, she should not have been allowed to be impleaded by the first Appellate Court as her application as well as that of the plaintiffs-appellants was not bona fide, and also necessitated a retrial of the suit.

The present appeal under clause 10 of the Letters Patent of this Court has been filed by the unsuccessful plaintiffs-appellants against the abovementioned judgment and order of the learned