An order refusing to issue an ad interim injunction as allowed by Rule 3 of Order 39, Civil P. C., is not appealable.

( 1 ) THIS is a plaintiffs appeal against an order refusing an injunction.

( 2 ) THE plaintiff is a firm dealing in tents and brushes, etc. , for which it has to employ a large body of workmen and labourers. The defendants are the representatives of those workers in the employ of the plaintiff concern. There was a dispute between the parties with regard to the defendants right to receive from the plaintiff certain sums, and the U. P. Governor, on 25-2-1947, referred the same under Rule 81, Defence of India Rules for adjudication to a particular officer of the Government. This officer made an award on 16-5-1947, that the plaintiff firm should pay roughly Rs. 40,000 as bonus to the workers in its employ. The plaintiff objected to this award and filed a Suit No. 73 of 1947 in the Court of the Civil Judge, Kanpur to obtain its cancellation. In this suit, the plaintiff made an application praying for a temporary injunction restraining the defendants from recovering the amount under the aforesaid award.

( 3 ) THE Court below passed a very short order on this application in the following words :

"civil Court vacation is near at hand. In this case intricate questions of law are involved and I cannot issue even ex parte injunction off hand. Both the parties are to be heard on the date to be fixed for hearing of injunction application. The applicant wants an injunction against the governments award. Order Rejected".

( 4 ) I take this order not as finally refusing, the application for injunction but surely as refusing to issue an ad interim injunction, inasmuch as the learned Judge clearly said that both the parties were to be heard on the date to be fixed for the hearing of the injunction, application.

( 5 ) A preliminary objection was taken by the learned counsel for the respondents that the order, not being a final order on the application for temporary injunction but only a preliminary order refusing to issue an ad-interim injunction, was not appealable under Order 43, Rule 1 (r) of the code. Now Order 39, Rule 1 of the Code allows the Court in which the-suit is filed to "grant a temporary injunction. . . . . . . . . . . until the disposal of the suit or until further order", and in Rule 3 of that Order it is provided that the Court shall direct notice of the application to be given to the opposite party, except where it appears that the object of granting the injunction would be defeated by the delay. That is to say, it may not issue notice to the opposite party, where there is a danger of this object being lost,, and issues an injunction, of course ad interim, straightway. Such an order, in my opinion, would be covered by the words "until further order", which Rule 1 of Order 39 concludes. It was argued that an order of this character could not be conceived to be one on the application for temporary injunction. Where an application purporting to be for such injunction is filed, there are three alternative orders that may possibly be made by the Court on that application. Firstly, it may be rejected forthwith, secondly, its final disposal may be postponed until after the opposite party has been heard, no ad interim injunction being granted, and lastly, an order granting an ad interim injunction, and then, after the Court has heard the opposite party, disposing of the application finally. In all these cases, it would be an order essentially on the application for temporary injunction, there being no other application at the time for that purpose. If the order is to take effect not for the period of the pendency of the suit, that is to say, to use the words of Rule 1, Order 39, not "until the disposal of the suit", at may take effect only "until further orders" if it is one only for an ad interim injunction, having the effect of a stay order. In all these cases, it would be an order under Rule 1, Order 39 and not outside that rule. This being so, again in all these cases, it would be appealable under Order 43, rule 1