JUDGMENT Pearson, J.
1. This appeal has been pending here for more than two years because one of the defendants, respondents, viz., Rukman Sevak Singh, who is a minor, was not properly represented. He is now at last represented by Dip Narain Singh, who has been duly appointed his guardian, and the appeal is ready for hearing. The appeal relates to a judgment passed by the lower Court on the 29th November 1876, in review of a former judgment dated 23rd August 1873. The decree is in favour of the plaintiffs, appellants; but one of the grounds of the appeal is that the minor aforesaid was not duly represented in that Court. An objection has been taken by the counsel for the guardian of the minor on his behalf that the review was improperly granted more than two years after the date of the judgment originally passed in the suit, without any sufficient explanation of the long delay in making the application for review. We have considered the objection, and are of opinion that it is valid and must be allowed.
2. The application for review of the judgment passed on the 23rd August 1873 bears the date of the 3rd November 1875, and the explanation which it offers of the delay of more than two years in preferring it is that fresh evidence has come to hand, which could not be adduced either when the case was decided or within the period allowed by law. The evidence so tendered was a copy of a judgment of this Court, dated 13th August 1875, in regular appeal No. 151 of 1874, Ato Kuar and Rajnit Kuar herself and as guardian of Rukman Sevak Singh, minor, defendants, appellants v. Kishna Ram, plaintiff, respondent. In that case, in reference to a transaction then in question between the parties aforesaid, the Court remarked that the minor's mother was competent to act in the transaction as his guardian, and, as she had not been empowered to administer his estate by the Civil Court, was not bound to obtain its sanction to her proceedings. The object of filing the judgment containing the remark aforesaid was to support the contention that the minor was bound by the mortgage-deed executed by his mother as his guardian in the present case. The judgment so filed was not, properly speaking, evidence at all. It was merely authority in support of a contention which should have been urged upon the Subordinate Judge when hearing the case in the first instance.
3. We do not say that the grounds set out in the application for review were not good grounds for granting a review, nor can they be called in question. But, however good they were, the application could not be granted unless just and reasonable cause were shown to the satisfaction of the Court for not having preferred it within the time allowed by the law. In this case no such just and reasonable cause was shown. The reference to this Court's judgment, dated 13th August 1875, was a mere blind. The argument to which that judgment gave countenance and the other arguments and statements contained in the application might have been adduced within the proper time.
4. The lower Court was not, therefore, warranted in granting the application and reviewing its former judgment of 23rd August 1873. We accordingly allow the objection taken here on behalf of the minor respondent, and dismiss the appeal with costs, and set aside the judgment and decree dated the 29th November 1876.