1. This order will govern civil Revisions Nos. 69 and 97 of 1947. These cases involve the question whether a revision under Section 115, Code of Civil Procedure, lies to the High Court against an order of the authority appointed by the Provincial Government under Section 15, Payment of Wages Act, or in other words, whether the authority can be said to be a 'Court' which is 'subordinate to the High Court.' In Turabali v. Sorabji, 1944 AIR(Nag) 288, Bose J, (now C.J.) held that the authority is a 'Court' but not a 'Court subordinate to the High Court,' while in Shrinivas v. Superintendent, Government Printing Press Nagpur, 1945 AIR(Nag) 94, Bobde J., expressed a contrary opinion. In view of this conflict these Cases have been referred to a Division Bench on a reference made by Padhye J.

2. This question has also been considered in other High Courts but the decisions are not uniform. It is not necessary at this stage to refer to these cases or the reasons on which they are based, Broadly Speaking, the opinion of Bose J., has found favour with the Bombay and the Allahabad High Courts and that of Bobde J. in Lahore and Patna. We shall recur to these ruling later. The question falls to be considered under two heads viz.: (a) Is the authority a 'Court' of civil judicature? and (b) If yes, is it a Court 'subordinate to the High Court?

3. The word 'Court' is not defined in the Code of Civil Procedure. The Indian Evidence Act contains a definition in Section 3 which is to the following effect:

Court' includes all Judges and Magistrates, and all persons, except arbitrators, legally authorised to take evidence.

This definition is not exhaustive and merely indicates what is included. Further this definition is for the purposes of the Act only and cannot be taken to apply generally in all contexts : see Queen-Empress v. Tulja 12 Bom. 36. Definitions are also to be found in English statutes but they are neither helpful nor exhaustive. In the Now English Dictionary (Vol. II, pp. 1090 and 1091) the meaning given is an assembly of Judges or other persons legally appointed and acting as a tribunal to hear and determine any cause civil, (sic) leaiastical, military or naval, It is, however, necessary to bear in mind that all tribunals are not Courts. As stated in Halsbury's Laws of England (Hailsham edition, vol. VIII, p. 525):

The tern Court bus inter alia the original meaning of the King's Palace, and has acquired the meaning of the place where justice is administered, and thence again the meaning of the persons who exercise judicial functions under the authority derived either immediately or mediately from the King. All tribunals, however, are not Courts, in the sense in which the term is here employed, namely, to denote such tribunals as exercise jurisdiction over persons by reason of the sanction of the law, and not merely by reason of voluntary submission to such jurisdiction.

The tests for determining whether or not a tribunal is a judicial body have been stated in Halsbury thus:

The distinction appears to be not so much whether the particular tribunal is a Court of justice, but whether it is a Court in law. In determining whether or not a tribunal is a judicial body the facts that it has been appointed by a non-judicial authority, that it has not power to administer an oath, that the chairman has a casting vote and that third parties have power to intervene are immaterial, especially if the statute setting it up prescribes a penalty for making false statements; elements to consider are (1) the requirement for a public hearing subject to a power to exclude the public in a proper case, and (2) a provision that a member of the tribunal shall not take part in any decision in which he is personally interested, nor unless he has been present throughout the proceedings.

It was observed by Lopes L.J., in Royal Aquarium and Summer and Winter Garden Society v. Parkinson, 1892 1 QB 431 that:

The word 'judicial' has two meanings. It may refer to the di