JUDGMENT

Knox and Blair, JJ. - This is a first appeal from an order passed by the District Judge of Allahabad. In the memorandum of appeal it is stated that the appeal is brought from an order dated the 30th of April 1894 and the 19th of May 1894. A memorandum of appeal can only deal with one particular order, but, as will be seen hereafter, part of the contention of the appellants is that the learned Judge gave an order of the 30th of April 1894 and completed that order on the 19th of May 1894. The proceeding before the Judge out of which the order appealed against arose consisted of an application praying the Judge to grant in inquiry u/s 163 and Section 214 of the Indian Companies Act, 1882. Both the orders mentioned in the memorandum of appeal were as a fact passed upon the proceeding which arose out of that application. On the 30th of April, the Judge dismissed the application so far as any inquiry u/s 214 of the Act was concerned. On the 19th of May he dismissed the application so far as it related to an inquiry u/s 162 of the same Act. A third paper over and above the copies of the orders of the above mentioned dates is attached to the memorandum of appeal. It is a paper about which much contention has arisen, partly because the Judge has not taken due care to comply with the form set out in the Civil Procedure Code, 1882, as the form according to which decree should be drawn up, and partly because, after passing a formal order that the application, so far as the inquiry u/s 214 was concerned, should be dismissed with costs, he went on afterwards to hear the parties touching the question of what particular sums under the detail of costs should be allowed. Still, so far as we are concerned, the order or orders with which we have to deal can only be the orders dated the 30th of April and the 19th of May.

2. The counsel for the respondents took certain preliminary objections, contending that no appeal lay from these orders. If the order concerned was the order dated the 30th of April 1894, the notice required by Section 169 of the Indian Companies Act, 1882, had not been given within three weeks after order complained of bad been made. If the order appealed from wag the Order of the 19th of May 1894, it was an order from which no appeal was allowed by law. It was not an order within the meaning of Section 169 of the Indian Companies Act, 1882. In support of this contention we were referred to the precedents In re Gold Company I L.R. Ch. D. 77 and In re Imperial Continental Water Corporation I L.R. Ch. D. 314. We have no hesitation in saying that in our opinion an appeal does not lie from an order like the present made u/s 162 of the Act. The section in question gives the Court extraordinary powers which at its discretion it may or may not exercise. Proceedings taken under it are not proceedings to which of necessity there are parties. They may be begun, continued and ended by the Court at its discretion and without any parties before it. So far then as the order of the 19th of May is concerned, if that be the order appealed against, it is an order from which no appeal lies.

3. There remains the order of the 30th of April. Notice of the intention to appeal was not given until the 7th of June 1894. This is admitted by the parties. The appellants, however, contend that they are still in time. They could not, they say, give notice of their appeal against the order complained of in any manner other than that in which notices of appeal are ordinarily given under the Code of Civil Procedure. One of the necessary requisites before an appeal can be filed under the CPC is that the memorandum of appeal must be accompanied by a copy of the decree appealed against. The learned Counsel drew our attention in support of this argument to a precedent of this Court--In re Official Liquidator, Uncovenanted Service Bank, Limited, in liquidation, (Miscellaneous No. 1 of 1891, decided on the 10th of April 1891). The case cited is undoubtedly an aut