ORDER

Bajpai, J. - This is a defendant's application in revision against a decree passed against him by a Judge of the Small Cause Court at Agra. The plaintiff brought a suit for the recovery of a sum of Rs. 45 against the defendant on the allegation that the said sum was due for arrears of rent for seven months; the rent was claimed at the rate of Rs. 10 a month for two months and Rs. 5 a month for five months. It was said that the plaintiff was the owner of two shops which the defendant had taken on rent, but about the end of March 1933 one of the shops was sold at an auction and purchased by a third party and thus the defendant was liable to pay the rent of only one of the shops after the auction-sale. The defence was that only one month's rent was due and the defendant thus admitted the liability to the extent of Rs. 10. He went on to say that for the last six months the shops were in the ownership of a third person who had purchased them at an auction-sale and the rent had been regularly paid to this third person. It was then said that as the title of the plaintiff to the shops was denied, the plaint should have been returned for presentation to a Court, having jurisdiction to determine the title.

2. The Court below has held that the plaintiff was entitled to the rent of both the shops for one month and one of the shops for five months and on this calculation it has given a decree to the plaintiff for Rs. 35. It is contended in revision by the defendant that a question of title was raised in the suit and if the Small Cause Court Judge intended to decide that question he should have decided it not in a summary manner, but after having asked the parties to produce all relevant evidence on the question and to have considered them thoroughly The learned Judge in the present case observes : "I, as a Small Cause Court, need not go deep into the question." This shows that the learned Judge decided the question of title in a summary manner. u/s 23, Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, when the right of a plaintiff and the relief claimed by him depends upon the proof or disproof of a title to immovable property or other title which such a Court cannot finally determine, the Court may, at any stage of the proceedings, return the plaint to be presented to a Court having jurisdiction, to determine the title. This shows that a Small Cause Court is competent to decide a question of title, but then he should finally determine the same and not in a cursory manner as it has done in the present case. It is not always convenient for a Small Cause Court Judge to decide an intricate question of title and the object of the above provision is to meet cases in which the Judge is satisfied that the question of title is so intricate that it should not be decided summarily and then it should return the plaint for presentation to a proper Court. In Hira Lal v. Mohammad Sharafat Ullah 14 I.C. 2, the Additional Judicial Commissioner of Oudh held that:

where in a suit brought in a Small Cause Court, the defendant raises a question of title, it is expedient or the Court to return the plaint for presentation to a Court competent to decide such a question.

3. In the present case the question of title depended upon a consideration of a number of documents. The plea of the defendant was that the two shops had been mortgaged to a stranger who in execution of his mortgage decree had purchased the shops at an auction-sale. It was necessary to consider the boundaries contained in the mortgage-deed, the decree, the sale certificate and the dakhalnama. Admittedly in the present case the learned Judge says that he need not go deep into the question and he has considered only the sale certificate in favour of the stranger and in a summary manner held that as the dakhalnama clashes with the sale certificate, the former document is not worth any reliance. This was therefore a case in which the question of title ought to have been decided by a competent Court other than the