Full Judgment
Woodroffe, J.
1. The law in force at the institution of these proceedings was the Central Provinces Land Revenue Act (XVIII of 1881) and the Bengal Civil Courts Act of 1887, inasmuch as Act II of 1904 was repealed by Act IV of 1906, so far as it referred to Sambalpur. No doubt Section 22(b) of Act XVIII of 1881 provides that, when a decision or order is passed by the Deputy Commissioner, an appeal lies to the Commissioner. But, by an amendment introduced in that Act by Section 136H(1), 'All decrees and orders passed by the Deputy Commissioner...shall be held to be decrees and orders of a Court of Civil Judicature, and shall be open to appeal as if passed by the Court of the Deputy Commissioner, acting as a Court of Civil Judicature of first instance, under the 'Central Provinces Civil Courts Act of 1885,' and to that extent that Section 136H(1), now qualifies Section 22, Clause (b), whatever may have been the case when that Section 136H(1), was first enacted. For we must construe the words 'Central Provinces Civil Courts Act of 1855,' occurring in Section 136H(1), as referring to the Bengal Civil Courts Act. If the decree or order was passed by the Deputy Commissioner acting as a Court of Civil Judicature, then, applying the Bengal Civil Courts Act, the appeal lay to the District Judge.
2. In my opinion we are concerned in this case with the interpretation to be placed upon Section 136H(1). But, in any case, Section 136(1), which was framed at a time when the Commissioner was a Court of Appeal, must be read consistently with the provisions of Section 136H(1), as they have been affected by Act; IV of 1906. The latter Act had the effect of repealing Act II of 1904, and of introducing the operation of the Bengal Civil Courts Act. As the appeal, therefore, lay to the District Judge, and, in fact, the appeal was taken to the Commissioner, there is, in my opinion, no second appeal from the Commissioner's decision to us.
3. The appeal must accordingly be dismissed, with costs.
4. The Rule nisi, which was one for stay of execution of the decree pending the hearing of the appeal, has come to an end with the hearing and dismissal of the appeal, and is discharged, with costs.
Carnduff, J.
5. I am of the same opinion. It seems to me. to be clear that, under Section 136 H of the Central Provinces Land-revenue Act, 1881 (India Act XVIII of 1881, as amended expressly by India Act XVI of 1889 and impliedly by Bengal Act IV of 1906), the appeal in this case lay to the District Judge, and was wrongly preferred before the Commissioner, by whom it was dismissed. That being so, the appellant has lost his remedy, and this second appeal must be dismissed.