JUDGMENT

Tek Chand, J. - This is a petition for revision of the order of the Senior Subordinate Judge, Amritsar, holding that the appeal against the decree of the Subordinate Judge, Fourth Class, Tarn Taran, dated 8th April 1927, lay to the District Judge and not to him, as the suit was not of a small cause nature but was an unclassed one, the value of which was over Rs. 100.

2. The relevant facts are these: Balwant Singh, defendant 1, and Bur Singh, defendant 2, sold certain ornaments for Rs. 140 to Bishen Singh, plaintiff. About two months later it was discovered that these ornaments really belonged to Mangal Singh, defendant 3, and Sikatar Singh, defendant 4, and they had been stolen from their house in a dacoity. Bur Singh, Balwant Singh and a number of other persons were suspected of having committed the dacoity and were proceeded against by the police. They were convicted and sentenced. Some time after their conviction by the Sessions Judge of Amritsar, an application was presented to him by Mangal Singh and Sikatar Singh (the persons at whose house the dacoity was committed) that the ornaments which had been seized by the police during the investigation from Bishen Singh and about Rs. 600 in cash which had been taken from the dacoits might be made over to them. The Sessions Judge directed that the ornaments and the cash might be made over to the Police, who subsequently made them over to Sikatar Singh and Mangal Singh.

3. Bishen Singh, who had purchased the ornaments, instituted the present suit to recover Rs. 140 which he alleged he had paid in good faith for these ornaments to Balwant Singh and Bur Singh. The suit was decreed by the trial Court and Mangal Singh and Sikatar Singh preferred an appeal to the senior Subordinate Judge who has held that the suit is excluded from the cognizance of the Small Cause Court under Articles 2 and 23, Schedule 2, Small Cause Courts Act,

4. I do not see how the suit, as framed, falls under either of the two clauses, and indeed Mr. Rustomji, who had appeared for the respondent, has expressed his inability to support the judgment of the lower Court. Article 2 excludes from the cognizance of a Court of Small Causes a suit concerning an act purporting to be done by an officer of the Government in his official capacity, or by an officer of a Court of Wards in the execution of his office. It is obvious that the plaint as laid down does not in any way concern an act or order of an officer of the kind mentioned in this clause. Similarly, Article 23 relates to a suit to alter or set aside a decision, decree or order of a Court or of a person acting in a judicial capacity. The present shit does not in any way intend to alter or set aside any judicial decision. Indeed, the learned Subordinate Judge in ordering the ornaments and the cash to be made over to the police, and the police in handing over these things to the persons in whose house the dacoity was committed, were not deciding the relevant rights of Bishen Singh and these persons with respect to the ornaments in question or the price thereof. The suit as framed is clearly cognizable by the Court of Small Causes, and I hold accordingly.

5. For the foregoing reasons I accept the petition for revision, set aside the order of the lower appellate Court and remand the case to it for disposal in accordance with law. Costs will abide the events.