The petitioner, Muhammad Bashir, made an application for permission to file a suit against the respondents, Mst. Razia. Sultana and others, in forma pauperis, for specific performance of an agreement of sale alleged to have been entered into by the respondents for sale of certain land. - It was alleged by the petitioner that the respondents had agreed to sell the land for Rs. 1,40,000.
According to him, he had paid Rs. 70,000, at the time of the agreement and the balance of the sale price would be paid by him at the time of execution of the sale deed. The application was rejected by a Civil Judge for the reason that the petitioner was not a pauper inasmuch as, on his own showing, he was in a position to pay Rs. 70,000, to the respon--dents as balance of the sale price.
Feeling aggrieved by the order of the learned Civil Judge, the petitioner has come up in revision to this Court.
2. Learned counsel for the petitioner pointed out that on the making of the -application by the petitioner the learned Civil Judge had asked for the report of the Collector but-before his report was received, he had decided to reject the application. The argument raised by learned counsel was that the learned Civil Judge could not reject the application without obtaining the report of the Collector.
3. According to rule 5 of Order XXXIII of the Code of Civil Procedure, an application for permission to sue as a pauper can be rejected by the Court--
(a) where it is not framed and presented in the manner prescribed by rules 2 and 3, or
(b) where the applicant is not a pauper, or
(c) where be has, within two months next before the presentation of the application, disposed of any property fraudulently or in order to be able to apply for permission to sue as a pauper, or
(d) where his allegations do not show a cause of action, or ' (e) where he leas entered into any agreement with reference to the subject-matter of the proposed suit under which any other person 'has obtained an interest in such subject-matter.
It seems that in the instant case, the learned Civil Judge had rejected the petitioner's application under clause (b)-of rule 5 as, according to the learned Civil Judge, the petitioner was not a pauper.
It has not been laid down in rule 5 that the Court shall obtain the report of the Collector before making an order thereunder. As is evident from the provisions of rule 6 of Order XXXIII, that the Government Pleader would come in the picture at the stage of evidence. According to the note appended to rule 4 of Chapter I-M of the High Court Rules and Orders, Volume I, the Deputy Commissioner of each District in the Punjab has been declared to be the Government Pleader for his district for the purpose of rule 6 of Order XXX111.
The application made by the petitioner would have been fixed for evidence if it had survived the scrutiny of the learned Civil Judge under rule 5; but as the aforesaid scrutiny had revealed that the application was liable to be rejected summarily it was not necessary for the learned Civil Judge tot obtain the report of the Deputy Commissioner/Collector before ordering its rejection even though he had already asked for his report. In this view of the matter, the order of the learned Civil Judge is not open to any valid exception.
4. Resultantly, this petition fails and is dismissed in lim ine.