JUDGMENT

Jai Lal, J. - On a petition being made by the prescribed number of persons under Section 7, Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925, claiming that an institution known as 'Gurdwara Chobacha Guru Ram Rai' situated within the limits of Moghalpura, Lahore, be declared to be a Sikh Gurdwara, the Local Government issued the usual notification under that section, whereupon the respondent Bachan Das claiming to be the Mahant of the alleged Gurdwara made an application under Section 8 of the Act praying that the institution be not declared to be a Sikh Gurdwara. This petition was opposed by the appellants, who are some of the applicants under Section 7 of the Act, and who style themselves as the Local Committee of the Gurdwaras at Lahore. The remaining respondents before us are some of the worshippers of the shrine. It may be noted at this stage that from the commencement of the proceedings the Shromani Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee declined to be a party to the proceedings before the Sikh Gurdwaras Tribunal. The case was consequently heard by the Gurdwaras Tribunal and the learned President and one of the Members, Rai Bahadur Dwarka Parshad, were of opinion that the institution was not a Sikh Gurdwara and should not there, fore be declared as such. The other member, Sardar Man Singh, however, differed from this view and recorded a separate dissenting judgment holding that the institution was a Sikh Gurdwara and should be declared as such, but the opinion of the majority of the members of the Tribunal prevailed and consequently the petition, presented under Section 8, Sikh Gurdwaras Act, was granted with costs and the institution declared not to be a Sikh Gurdwara. The Local Committee of the Gurdwaras at Lahore have preferred this appeal.

2. At the commencement of the hearing of the appeal, a preliminary objection was taken by Mr. Achhru Ram, Advocate, on behalf of the respondents that this appeal is incompetent and should not therefore be entertained. It appears that in consequence of the judgment of the majority of the members of the Tribunal, a decree sheet was prepared in which the judgment of the Tribunal was incorporated, but in the memorandum of costs the amount payable by the appellants to the respondent on account of subsistence for witnesses was mentioned to be Rs. 1,095-4-0. An application was then made on behalf of the appellants on 1st November 1935 objecting to this amount. This application was under Order 47, Rule 1, Civil P.C., for review of the judgment of the Tribunal as well as the decree dated 23rd September 1935. The application was granted on 20th December 1935, the Gurdwaras Tribunal having held that the amount payable by the appellants as subsistence for witnesses was Rs. 731 and that the decree should be amended accordingly. This order is signed by the three members of the Tribunal and was given effect to on the same day by means of a correction of the original decree sheet in which the amount originally mentioned was reduced and the alteration initialled by the Clerk of Court of the Tribunal but not by any of the three members thereof. In the meantime the present appeal had been presented on 18th December 1935, that is to say two days before the order accepting the application of the appellants and altering the amount of costs as mentioned in the decree. With the memorandum of appeal a copy of the decree sheet as originally framed was filed and no attempt was, up to the hearing of the appeal, made to file a copy of the decree sheet as amended in pursuance of the order of the Tribunal. The learned Counsel for the respondents contends that the decree sheet having been amended, no appeal is competent against the decree as originally framed which has now ceased to exist, and as the amendment was made on an application made by the appellants, they have no reasonable excuse for the omission, and are not therefore entitled to any extension of time.

3. A number of cases have been cited in support of this preliminary objection