BHARGAVA, C. J. :- This special appeal has been filed by the Assistant District Panchayat Officer, Rai Bareli, Assistant Development Officer, Rahi, Rai Bareli, the District Panchayat Officer, Rai Bareli, and the State of Uttar Pradesh against a judgment of a learned Single Judge of this Court allowing a petition filed by respondent Jai Narain under Article 226 of the Constitution and quashing an order of appellant No. 1 dated 21st August 1963, directing the holding of a meeting to consider a no-confidence motion which was presented by five members of the Gram Sabha before appellant No. 2, having been signed by more than half the number of members.

When this special appeal came up for hearing, a preliminary objection was raised on behalf of the respondent that the appeal had not been properly filed as it was filed under the signature of the Standing Counsel, who merely had authority to appear and plead on behalf of the appellants but was not entitled to act on their behalf. It appears from a notification reproduced in annexure C of the Legal Remembrancer's Manual that the Standing Counsel was appointed to act for the State Government as well as for public officers in the service of the State Government in all judicial proceedings pending before the High Court if the defence of the public officers was undertaken on their behalf by the State Government. This notification was issued in pursuance of rules 2 and 8 and clause (c) of rule 8-B of Order XXVII of the first schedule to the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. This notification makes it clear that the Standing Counsel was entitled to act on behalf of the appellants in all judicial proceedings to which the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure are applicable.

We may at this stage take notice of the submission that there is in this case no specific assertion that the defence in the writ petition or in this special appeal was undertaken by the State Government on behalf of the appellants Nos. 1 to 3, but we consider that on this point no specific assertion was needed. The very fact that the Standing Counsel was instructed to appear and did appear on behalf of these three appellants also in the writ petition and has also filed the appeal on their behalf, shows that their defence was also undertaken by the State Government. No positive assertion on this point could be made because this ground, which depended partly on a question of fact, was not raised at any earlier stage and was raised here for the first time during the course of the hearing of arguments in this special appeal. In the circumstances, we are inclined to accept the submission made by the Standing Counsel that the defence of appellants Nos. 1 to 3 in the writ petition was undertaken by the State Government and, therefore, he is entitled to act on behalf of those three appellants just as he is entitled to act on behalf of the State of Uttar Pradesh.

The learned counsel, however, urged that this notification authorises the Standing Counsel to act on behalf of the appellants only in proceedings to which the provisions of Code of Civil Procedure are applicable; while, to a petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution and a special appeal arising out of it, the Code of Civil Procedure does not apply. It appears to us that proceedings started by a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution, if they relate to a civil right, must be held to be civil proceedings to which the provisions of Code of Civil Procedure are applicable. That the proceedings in a High Court on a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution, when they relate to civil rights are civil proceedings has already been decided by the Supreme Court in S. A. L. Narayan Row v. Ishwarlal Bhagwan Das. AIR 1965 SC 1818.

Being a civil proceeding, the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure would apply to it under section 141 of the Code of Civil Procedure, in so far as the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure can be made applicable.

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