JUDGMENT A.P. Srivastava, J.
1. This Full Bench has been constituted to consider the question "Whether the jurisdiction of the Civil Court is barred by virtue of Section 242 of the U. P. Tenancy Act in respect of suit filed under Section 9 of the Specific Relief Act for obtaining) possession over agricultural land from which the plaintiff alleged his illegal dispossession within six months of the date of the-suit".
The reference has been made by Mukherji, J. as he felt that there was a conflict between two Division Bench decisions of this Court, the one being in the case of Ganga Din v. Gokul Prasad, 1951 All LJ 290: (AIR 1950 All 407) (A) and the other being an unreported decision in Jag Narain v. Bhagwati Prasad, Civil Revn. No. 1548 of 1951 (since reported in 1957 All LJ 783: (AIR 1958 All 48} (B) and that it was desirable that the conflict be resolved.
the plaintiff for more than 12 years. It was therefore not open to the plaintiffs to eject them. They also pleaded that the plaintiffs had filed the suit under Section 9 of the Specific Relief Act only to evade the jurisdiction of the revenue court as the suit if filed there could never succeed.
4. The learned Munsif rejected the plea of want of jurisdiction relying on the case of 1951 All LJ 290: (AIR 1950 All 407) (A). On facts he accepted the plaintiff's case and rejected that of the defendants, He therefore decreed the suit. The defendants then filed the application in revision out of which the present reference has arisen and it was contended on their behalf that the view taken by the learned Munsif about the applicability of Section 242 of the U. P. Tenancy Act was not justified and the case on which he relied in support of that view had not been correctly decided. The learned counsel sought support for his contention from the decision in Civil Revn. No. 1548 of 1951: (AIR 1958 All 48) (B).
5. Five contentions, some of which clearly over-
(1) Section 242 of the U. P. Tenancy Act is wide in its scope and imperative in nature. The history of the enactment shows that it has always been the intention of the Legislature to keep the revenue court as the only forum in which all disputes relating to agricultural land should be triable. Whenever courts made an attempt by interpreting the law to give concurrent or alternative jurisdiction in such matters to the civil court, the Legislature intervened and made bar excluding the jurisdiction of the Civil Court more stringent and comprehensive.
Whatever may be the nature of the dispute, therefore, if it relates to agricultural land and can in any way be considered to be of the nature specified in the Fourth Schedule of the U. P. Tenancy Act, the revenue court alone is entitled to hear it. No other court can have jurisdiction to entertain it. While enacting Section 242 of the U. P. Tenancy Act the Legislature made no exception in favour of suits filed under Section 9 of the Specific Relief Act. The plaintiffs cannot therefore be allowed to escape the bar of Section 242 simply by framing the suit as one under Section 9 of the Specific Relief Act.
(2) As Section 242 stands, a claim based on any cause of action in respect of which any relief can be obtained by means of a suit or application in the revenue court can bo filed only in the revenue court. The term "cause of action" used in the section has a wide and comprehensive meaning. It covers all the facts that have happened prior to the date of the suit on account of which the plaintiff got a right to claim the relief he wants.
Keeping this wide meaning of the term in view, everything happening before the suit on account of which the plaintiff can claim any relief constitutes his cause of action and if in respect of it, he can claim any relief in a suit or application filed in the revenue court he has no option but to go to that court for that relief. The relief which the revenue court ran grant him may not be adequate and may not be identical with the relief which the plaintiff wants. If any relief of any kind can be had from the revenue court that court is the only court to which recourse can be had. Going to the civil court is out of question.
(3) A plaintiff is bound to put forward in his plaint the actual and the real cause of action. As the term covers all the facts that have happened till the date of the suit he is bound to put forward all those facts, It is not open to him to allege an unreal or incomplete cause of action, nor can he be allowed to twist the facts or to put forward only a part of the cause of action with a view to take away the jurisdiction of the revenue court and confer it on the civil court.
If he does so, the civil court may in the first instance entertain his suit initially because the allegations in the plaint alone are to be seen for deciding the question of jurisdiction, but as soon as it comes to the notice of the court that the full facts have not been alleged, that something had been concealed, or that some facts have been twisted, the civil court will refuse to deal with the matter and will decline to entertain the suit. The plaintiffs in the present case could not, therefore, file tho suit in the civil court simply by alleging possession and dispossession. They should have alleged the full facts and circumstances and had they done so it would have been found that the suit was really one which could have been filed under Section 180 of the U. P. Tenancy Act. As soon as the learned Munsif came to know of this he should have dismissed the suit.
(4) Even if the plaintiffs had filed a suit with incomplete or twisted allegations and their suit was initially entertained by the civil court under the impression that it could be tried by it as soon when the defendants appeared and put all the facts before the court, the court should have non-suited the plaintiffs leaving them to seek their remedy in the proper Revenue Court.
(5) Though complete facts had not been given by the plaintiffs in their plaint in essence the suit was a suit for the ejectment of alleged trespassers and was clearly covered by Section 180 of the U. P, Tenancy Act. The learned Munsif lost sight of this fact when he entertained the suit and held it to be congnizable by him.
(6) Section 242 of the U. P. Tenancy Act, as it stood immediately before its repeal by the Zamin-dari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, provided as fellows:
"Subject to the provisions of Section 286 all suits and applications of the nature specified in the Fourth Schedule shall be heard and determined by a revenue court, and no court other than a revenue court, shall, except by way of appeal or revision as provided in this Act, take cognizance of any such suit or application, or of any suit or application based on a cause of action in respect of which any relief could be obtained by means of any such suit or application.
Explanation I: If the cause of action is one in respect of which relief might be granted by the revenue court, it is immaterial that the relief asked for from the civil court may not be identical with that which the revenue court could have granted.
Explanation II: If the cause of action is one in respect of which relief might be granted by the revenue court under Section 180, it is immaterial that the relief which may be asked for from the civil court is greater than or additional to that which the revenue court could have granted.
Example: If in a suit under Section 180 a person claims damages exceeding four times the annual rental value, he cannot oust the jurisdiction of the revenue court by framing his relief as such".
The corresponding section in the earlier Agra Tenancy Act of 1926 was Section 230 of the Act. As originally enacted, that section contained the word 'adequate' before the word relief. By Act XIII of 1039, however the word 'adequate' was omitted from that section and when the section was re-ehcted in Section 242 of the U. P. Tenancy Act of 1939, the word 'adequate' was not re-introduced. As it originally stood, the second explanation and the example were not there in Section 242. They were added by Section 22 of the U. P. Amending Act X of 1947. The same section introduced the word 'any' in the first paragraph before the word relief.
7. These changes were apparently necessitated by the interpretations that were put by this Court on the section. Under the N. W. F. Tenancy Act, 1901, suits against trespassers could not be filed in the revenue court. When that Act was in force suits against trespassers on agricultural land were entertained by the civil courts alone. The Agra Tenancy Act of 1926 was then enacted and Section 44 of that Act permitted a landholder to sue for the ejectment of a person taking or retaining possession of land without his consent and in contravention of the provisions of the Act.
It also entitled him to claim if he liked damages which could extend to four times the annual rental value of the rent applicable to statutory tenants, Section 230 of the Act made a suit under Section 44' triable exclusively by the revenue court and also provided that if adequate relief could be obtained by a suit of that nature, recourse could not be had to the civil court. A question then arose whether Section 230 look away entirely the jurisdiction of the civil court to try suits for ejectment of trespassers on agricultural land. In the case of Mohammad Muslim v. Mahrania, 25 All LJ 545: (AIR 1927 All 369) (G), a Full Bench of this Court took the view that in spite of Sections 44 and 230 of the U. P. Tenancy Act, the civil court and the revenue court continued to have concurrent jurisdiction to entertain suits against trespassers.
The only difference was that if the landholder plaintiff considered that four times the rent was adequate enough for him he could file the suit in the revenue court. If, however, he wanted to claim a greater amount of damages he could file the suit in the civil court. This interpretation of the law was based on the use of the word 'adequate' in Section 230 as it was originally enacted, The decision in Mohammad Muslim's case (C) was followed in a number oi cases, and the Legislature obviously felt that undue importance had been given by the Full Bench to the word 'adequate' in Section 230.
By Act 13 of 1939, therefore, the word adequate was omitted from that section. Soon afterwards the Agra Tenancy Act of 1926 was substituted by the U. P. Tenancy Act of 1939 and Section 230 of the Agra Tenancy Act was enacted in the new Act as Section 242. The word 'adequate' was not there in the new section. The question what was the effect of the omission arose for consideration in Parmeshari Das v. Angan Lal, 1944 All LJ 67: (AIR 1944 All 81) (D). In that case it was held that the omission was immaterial and that the word 'relief' which continued in the section meant the relief claimed by the plaintiff or a substantial portion of it and not "any relief".
This view was not accepted by the Legislature with the result that by the U. P. Amending Act X of 1947 the word 'any' was inserted before the word relief in* the first paragraph of Section 242 and a second explanation and example were added to the section. The intention was to make it clear that if in respect of a cause of action any relief, whatever be its nature or extent whether it was adequate or inadequate, could be obtained by means of a suit or application mentioned in the Fourth Schedule of the Tenancy Act, the suit on that cause of action was to be filed in the revenue court and could not be entertained by the civil court.
8. It is however not possible either on the basis of the terms of Section 242 or on account of the several amendments introduced in it from time to time to uphold the contention of the learned counsel for the applicants that the Legislature intended that provided it relates to agricultural land every kind or suit irrespective of its nature or scope was to be triable by the revenue court alone and could not be filed in the civil court. The section confers exclusive jurisdiction on the revenue court and at the same time takes away the jurisdiction of the civil court only in respect of two kinds of ac-tions.
(1) suits or application of the nature specified in the Fourth Schedule of the Act, and (2) suits or applications based on a cause of action in respect or which any relief can be obtained by means of a suit or application specified in that schedule.
9. Before Section 242 can be attracted, therefore, the action must fall under either of these two categories. If it does not, the jurisdiction of the civil court will not be ousted and the revenue court will have no jurisdiction to entertain the action. The other entries in