( 1. ) THIS order will also govern the disposal of Civil Revisions nos. 422 to 425 of 1968, which were heard along with this revision, and of Civil revisions Nos. 430 to 436 and No. 457 of 1968 heard subsequently. These revisions by the Union of India, as representing the South Eastern Railways, under section 25 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, 1837, are directed against the judgments and decrees of the First Civil Judge, Class II, Seoni, empowered under section 9 of the Madhya Pradesh Civil Courts Act, 1958, pronounced by him on diverse dates in March 1968, in suits for compensations brought by different consignees on account of damages to certain consignments of betel leaves resulting from alleged delay in transit.

( 2. ) WITHOUT adverting to the merits of the controversy between the parties in these suits, the suits have to be remanded for a re-trial because the procedure adopted by the learned Judge has been fundamentally defective. The material facts are these. The suits involved common questions of fact and law although the parties were different, and the learned Judge for his own convenience tried the suits together without any order for their consolidation