(delivering the judgment of the Court): As the result of unhappy differences between the registered co-proprietors of a piece of land, an application was made by one of them for the sale of the land by public auction. A consent order was made in terms on June 19, 1973. It was duly drawn up and perfected. In the consequential summons for directions, as amended, among the terms and conditions set for the sale, a reserve price, as is usual in such cases, was fixed. There was liberty to apply.

The sale by public auction proved abortive. We do not know the reason, but in all likelihood, the reserve price was set too high.

Next, the first respondent died. Both the second and third respondents and the applicant applied separately to substitute the executors of the deceased owner's estate in the action. The second and third respondents desired to carry on with the auction. Alternatively, they asked to sell their undivided shares by private treaty. The applicant asked, more generally, that the public auction be withdrawn and the parties be at liberty to sell their shares by private treaty.

At the hearing of the two applications, Mr. Ariarajah, counsel for the second and third respondents, advised the court that "his client" (advisedly, in the singular) desired to withdraw the prayer for sale by private treaty. He did not say what his other client wanted. Counsel for the representatives of the first respondent and for the applicant objected to the proposed withdrawal of this particular prayer. The court refused the application to withdraw and an order was made allowing the parties to sell their shares by private treaty.

This order was therefore made against the wishes of one of Mr. Ariarajah's two clients. Who this person was can now be seen from the appeal lodged by Mr. Ariarajah. She is Meenachi, the wife of the other client of his. But there apparently was no conflict of interests, since this other client has now by another firm of solicitors lodged his own appeal. There are now two appeals, each making the other appellant a respondent, and two sets of appeal records, identical in all respects, even in respect of the grounds of appeal, though not in expression.

The order now appealed from obviously varied the consent order. The appeal was therefore grounded almost entirely on the jurisdiction of the court to vary an order which it had made and which had been drawn up and perfected. The question is whether in the circumstances the jurisdiction exercised by the court can be justified.

The answer to the question is obvious and, with respect, is so clearly stated in paragraph 2011 of Volume 2 of either the 1976 or the 1979 Supreme Court Practice that we will merely content ourselves with repeating that an order by consent is evidence of the contract between the parties and is binding on all the parties to the order. It may be pleaded as an estoppel: Kinch v Walcott [1929] AC 482. All the more so, in our view, since there is not the slightest question of any mistake as to facts or law. A co-proprietorship of agricultural land which is under cultivation is at best an uneasy proposition and when the conditions pertaining are such that production must suffer, the time has come for the parting of the ways. This could be achieved by one of several ways. One of the co-proprietors could buy out the others, or the land could be partitioned, or the land could be sold either by private treaty or by public auction. This is not unknown to the parties: see the letter dated June 6, 1970 from the then solicitors of the applicant to the other co-proprietors. It was in this understanding of the situation facing them and the alternatives open to them that all the co-proprietors consented to a sale by public auction.

Yet in these circumstances and despite the fact that at the hearing his counsel had not voiced any objection on his behalf, Ganapathy Chettiar lodged an appeal from the order made. We could not understand how he coul