( 1 ) THIS is a Full Bench reference.

( 2 ) THE defendant-appellant, Mata Prasad Pandey came up to this Court by way of appeal under order 43, Rule 1 (u), Civil P. C. He challenged the appellate order of the learned Civil Judge, fyzabad, passed in appeal under Order 43, Rule 1 (a), Civil P. C. remanding the case for disposal on merits under Order 41, Rule 23, Civil P. C.

( 3 ) ON the date on which this appeal was first argued before a single Judge of this Court, it was conceded that a second appeal against the appellate order of remand was incompetent. It was prayed, however, that the memorandum of appeal be treated as a revision. The sole question for determination before us is whether the order of remand passed under Order 41, Rule 23 constitutes a case decided within the meaning of Section 115, Civil P. C. The reference was necessitated because of a conflict between the Oudh Chief Court and the Allahabad view on the aforementioned question.

( 4 ) THE suit was for recovery of possession of certain tenancy plots and for damages. The plaintiffs Earn Adhar Pandey and Sobha Kalwar claimed to be tenants of the lands on Rs. 30 per annum under a lease executed by the zemindaria, Mt. Sheopata, dated 30-5 1944. They characterized the defendants possession as usurpatory and illegal. The learned Munsif in whose Court the suit was instituted held that his jurisdiction was barred by Section 242 read with section 180, U. P. Tenancy Act as it now stands after the amendment of 1947 (Act x [10] of 1947 ). In appeal the learned Civil Judge came to the conclusion that the amendment did not operate to oust the jurisdiction of the civil Courts in pending cases which were rightly instituted in such Courts in accordance with the law then in force. He, therefore, remanded the suit to the trial Court with the direction that it should be re-admitted to its original number and decided on merits. The view taken by the learned Civil Judge may perhaps be affected somewhat by the recent Full Bench view in Raghuraj Singh v. Sobhaman, 1951 ALL. L. J. 56 but that matter must be left for determination by the learnsd referring Judge.

( 5 ) SECTION 115, Civil P. C. , empowers the High Court to call for the record of any case which has been decided by subordinate Courts in which no appeal lies thereto and to pass such orders as it thinks fit if it finds that injustice has been occasioned on account of an error in the exercise of jurisdiction. In cases where the order sought to be revised does not amount to a decision of a case, it is obvious that the aggrieved party cannot invoke the aid of Section 115 and the question whether the order suffered from defects of the nature contemplated by the section would not arise. It is urged on behalf of the defendant-appellant that the remand order amounted to the decision of an appeal which must be deemed to be a distinct case for the purpose of Section 115, Civil P. C. The meaning of the expression case decided occurring in 8. 115, Civil P. C. has been the subject of varying decisions and a great deal of case law has clustered round the subject. In many of them the task of defining the word case has been held to be almost hopeless. The meaning of that word has not been limited by any statutory exposition and it has often been found difficult to accept the view that the word has been used by the Legislature in the ordinary sense in which it is usually understood in the English language namely as any state of facts judicially considered (see the New Oxford Dictionary ). The decisions have varied between the two extremes, one representing the rule laid down by Mahmud J. in Chattarpal Singh v. Raja ram, 7 ALL. 661 and a whole string of similar cases from other High Courts and the other in which it had been laid down that the word care when applied to a suit means the whole suit and the expression case decided means the final adjudication of the dispute by the Court charged with its disposal. The cases of this latter