Indigent Person--Properties, which are exempted from attachment or sale in execution of decree are to be computed for assessing sufficient means.
Indigent Person--Sufficient means does not include such means on which bare living of parties depends--It is the capacity to raise funds by normal available lawful means.

Mrs. Daya Chaudhary, J.:- By this judgment of mine, two cases bearing CR Nos.2726 and 2687 of 2017 shall be disposed of as common question of law and issues are involved. However, for the sake of brevity, the facts are being extracted from CR No.2687 of 2017.

2. Petitioners, namely, Darshan Singh, Gurmail Singh, Avtar Singh alias Taar Singh and Gurvinder Singh have approached this Court by way of filing CR No.2687 of 2017 to challenge impugned order dated 12.01.2017 (Annexure P-4) passed by the Additional District Judge, Mansa, whereby, the Court has allowed the appeal of the plaintiffs-respondents to pursue their case as indigent persons by reversing the order passed by the trial Court.

3. Briefly, the facts of the case as made out in the present revision petition are that the respondents-plaintiffs filed a suit under the Fatal Accident Act, 1885. As per allegations of the respondents, the petitioners had caused the death of Bhog Singh, who was husband of respondent No.1 and father of respondents No.2 to 5. Respondents-plaintiffs filed suit for damages as indigent persons under Order 33 Rule 1 CPC. The claim in the suit was for damages amounting to Rs.10,00,000/- and the Court fee of Rs.15,600/- was levied. The trial Court directed the plaintiffs to pay requisite amount of Court fee vide order dated 09.11.2015 and thereafter, even the period was extended vide order dated 08.12.2015. On account of noncompliance of order regarding levying of the Court fee, the plaint of the plaintiffs was rejected vide order dated 20.01.2016, which was challenged by the plaintiffs by way of filing the appeal, which was allowed vide order dated 12.01.2017 by the Additional District Judge, Mansa, which has been challenged in the present revision petition.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that while passing the impugned order, the ratio of law laid down by this Court in Ghanshyam Dass Rastogi vs. A.N. Syal, 1961 AIR (P&H) 131 has not been taken into consideration. Learned counsel further submits that non-disclosure of assets as required by Order 33 Rule 2 CPC would tantamount to a fraud with the Court and the plea of plaintiffs to proceed as a Forma Pauperis is to be rejected. Learned counsel also submits that in the present case, there is a material concealment of the property whereas it should have been disclosed as per provisions of Order 33 Rule 2 CPC. The husband of the plaintiff No.1 was having eight buffaloes and he used to sell milk. Fact regarding existence of other properties and other sources of income have also been concealed whereas those should have been brought on record by the defendants. They were also getting income from pension schemes etc. At the end, learned counsel for the petitioners submits that the impugned order has wrongly been passed by ignoring the legal position as laid down under Order 33 Rule 2 and Order 33 Rule 5 CPC.

5. Heard arguments of learned counsel for the petitioners and have also perused the impugned order as well as other documents available on the file. Plaintiffs-respondents Harbans Kaur, Harjinder Singh, Karamjit Kaur, Paramjit Kaur and Satnam Singh filed a suit and also moved an application under Order 33 Rule 1 CPC for grant of compensation of Rs.10,00,000/- for loss on account of murder of husband of plaintiffrespondent No.1 and father of plaintiffs-respondents No.2 to 5. It was mentioned in the application that they are poor, helpless and do not have any land/property and their total income is not more than Rs.2000/-. The suit was filed in the form of Pauper Suit.

6. Reply to that application was filed by raising certain objections. It was mentioned in the reply that the plaintiffs are not poor and helpless persons as they are owners of land/property and are having gold, silver jewelry, cash and are capable of affixing Court fee. Said application was dismissed vide order dated 09.11.2015 and plaintiffs were directed to affix Court fee. Said order dated 09.11.2015 was challenged