Substantial compliance with procedural requirements allows for a pauper application to proceed even if technicalities are not strictly adhered to.

1. The opposite party filed an application under Order XXXIII , R.2, Civil Procedure Code for permission to sue as a pauper. She also attached a separate plaint to her pauper application claiming partition of a house and a shop valuing her share at Rs. 26,000/- and odd. This application was contested by the present petitioners before the lower court on the ground mainly that the opposite party was not pauper. The lower court found that she was a pauper and allowed her to sue as pauper. It is against this order that this revision has been filed.

2. The main argument of the learned counsel for the petitioners is that the application for permission to sue as a pauper under Order XXXIII , R.2, Civil Procedure Code should have been rejected by the lower court under R.5, of Order XXXIII , Civil Procedure Code as it was not framed in accordance with R.2 of Order XXXIII , Civil Procedure Code . R.2, it is pointed out, provides that an application for permission to sue as a pauper shall contain the particulars required in regard to plaints in suits, a schedule of any moveable or immovable property belonging to the applicant, with the estimated value thereof, shall be annexed thereto and it shall be signed and verified in the manner prescribed for the signing and verification of pleadings. The argument is that the application for permission to sue neither contained the particulars required in regard to plaints in suits nor any schedule of immovable property belonging to the applicant. Reference is also made to R.8 of Order XXXIII , Civil Procedure Code which provides that where the application is granted, it shall be numbered and registered and shall be deemed to be the plaint in the suit and the suit shall proceed in all other respects as a suit instituted in the ordinary manner. The argument proceeds that the particulars in regard to the plaint not having been mentioned in the application for permission to sue, it could not be converted into a plaint as required by Rub 8 of O. XXXIII, Civil Procedure Code and therefore, the application being defective, the court had no option but to reject the application for permission to sue under R. 5 (a) of O. XXXIII, Civil Procedure Code .

3. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and I am of the view that this argument is not tenable in law. No doubt R.2 of Order XXXIII provides that the application for permission to sue shall contain the particulars required in regard to plaints in suits and that it shall also contain a schedule of movable and immovable property signed and verified as a plaint, but this rule, to my mind, applies only to those cases where the application for permission to sue has been filed at the very inception and not after or simultaneously with the filing of an ordinary plaint. When the plaint has already been filed as an ordinary plaint, then it is hardly necessary to incorporate the particulars of the plaint in the application for permission to sue and there will be substantial compliance with R.2 of Order XXXIII , Civil Procedure Code if the plaint contains all the necessary particulars and the same have been properly verified. In so far as the schedule of movable and immovable property is concerned also there was in this case, to my mind, a substantial compliance with R. 2 inasmuch as the application for permission to sue under Order XXXIII , R.2, Civil Procedure Code contained a definite averment that the applicant - opposite party was not possessed of any immovable property other than