' The respondents filed a suit for recovery of Rs, 1,080 in the Small Cause Court against the petitioner on account of the arrears of rent of a house on the foot of a rent note. The suit was resisted by the petitioner who not only disowned the rent note but also alleged that the house did not belong to the respondents. After considering the evidence of the parties the Small Cause Court rejected the defence of the petitioner and decreed the suit of the respondents. Being aggrieved by the decision of the Small Cause Court the petitioner has come in revision to this Court.
2. The only submission made by the learned counsel for the petitioner is that by rejecting the plea of the petitioner that the house belonged to someone else and not to the respondents the learned Small Cause Court has decided a question of title which it was not competent to do. I find no merit in this contention. The competency of the Small Cause Court to entertain a suit depends not upon the pleas taken in the written statement but on the relief claimed in the plaint. The contrary view would permit an unscrupulous defendant to easily deprive a Small Cause Court of its jurisdiction in sults which should ordinarily be tried by it by simply raising a plea of title. Admittedly, the suit as framed by the respondents was entertainable by a Small Cause Court. The fact that in his written statement the petitioner had taken a plea which necessitated an adjudication upon the title of the respondents to the house did not oust the jurisdiction of the Small Cause Court to decide the suit.
In Puttangowda Mallangowda v. Nilkanth Kalo Deshpande (1) a Full Bench of the Bombay High Court held that a Court of Small Cause could entertain a suit even whore its principal purpose was to determine a right to immovable property, provided the suit in form did not ask for that relief but for payment of a sum of money. It is to be noticed under subsection (1) of section 23 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act if the right of a plaintiff and the relief claimed by him in a Court of Small Cause depend upon the proof or disproof of his title to immovable property, the said Court has an option either to try the question itself or to refer him to an ordinary civil Court. In this case the Small Cause Court decided to try the question of title of the respondents to the house itself in view of the option given to it in subsection (1) ibid. For the reasons stated above it was quite competent to try this question, particularly as it was not of a complicated nature. Thus, the judgment and decree of the Small Cause Court do not suffer from any error of jurisdiction.
3. No other point was raised in this civil revision which is hereby dismissed with costs.