Judgement Appeal from an order of the High Court (Jan. 19, 1897), and a decree of the same Court dated July 20, 1897. The order of the High Court discharging a rule nisi to shew cause why an appeal to the District Court of Tirhoot from a decree of the Subordinate Judge should not be entered as an appeal to the High Court, which was made under the circumstances stated in the judgment of their Lordships, was based upon the following judgment— "This rule arises out of the following circumstances. The applicant before us brought two suits under s. 283 of the Code of Civil Procedure against different sets of defendants in respect of the same property. The suits were tried together, and were dismissed by one and the same judgment. In one of the suits the plaintiff appealed direct to this Court; but in the other suit, No. 100 of 1892, he preferred his appeal to the District Judge. That appeal was presented on September 3, and was admitted by the judge on September 4, 1894, on which date an order was made staying the hearing of the appeal pending an application to be made for its transfer to this Court, in order that it might be heard together with the appeal filed in this Court in the other suit. An application was then made to this Court for the transfer of the appeal, and an order was passed on August 9, 1895, calling up the appeal to be tried by this Court. The record has been received, and the appeal has been registered in this Court as No. 304 of 1895. Then, on September 16, 1895, the applicant applied for the present rule upon the allegation that he had discovered that the District Judge had no jurisdiction to try the appeal, the value of it being over Rs.5000, and that the appeal ought to have been, like the appeal in the other case, presented to this Court; and the prayer of the applicant was, That your Lordships will be pleased to order that the aforesaid memorandum of appeal from the judgment and decree in suit No. 100 of 1892 be admitted in the Honourable Court and be duly registered and numbered, or that your Lordships will be pleased to make any other or further orders as to your Lordships shall seem meet. The rule was granted on the reopening of the Court after the long vacation on November 25, 1895, and it comes on after more than a years delay to be heard by us. "We are of opinion that there are several grounds which debar the applicant from succeeding in this rule. "This is not an application for the admission of an appeal after time, which is being presented in proper form to this Court. There is no fresh memorandum of appeal now before us. What we are asked to do is to treat an appeal which was presented to the District Judge, and which was called up for trial by this Court, as an appeal to this Court direct, and that in the face of the order of the Division Bench which called up the appeal for hearing. We are of opinion that we cannot do that. The appeal as presented to the District Judge has been called up to this Court and is now an appeal to this Court, numbered 304 of 1895, and we are at a loss to see how we can interfere in any way with the order made as regards that appeal. "But, even supposing that a fresh memorandum of appeal had been presented and we were asked to admit it after time, we are of opinion that the applicant has not satisfied us that he had sufficient cause for not presenting the appeal before. It may be that in certain cases a mistake made by the parties as to jurisdiction or other matters may be a sufficient cause for admitting an appeal after time; but in the present case it is difficult to see how such a mistake can have occurred. The two suits were in respect of the same property, and it is to be presumed that they were of the same value. They appear to have been instituted on different dates, and that is probably the reason why the values of the suits are put down at different figures ; but the applicant, who was the plaintiff in those suits, must have known very well that the value of this suit was above Rs.5000, and that the appeal in this as in the other case lay to the High Court. "But, even supposing that that mistake could be overlooked and could be treated as a sufficient cause for not having filed this appeal within time, still there is another circumstance which, we think, would preclude the applicant from having this rule made absolute, and that is that, although he became aware of this mistake on August 9, 1895, he made no application to this Court until September 16, or more than five weeks afterwards, and then only in the form of the application to which we have referred. There was no reason whatever why the application could not have been made within a few days of the discovery of the mistake. Of course, had a fresh memorandum of appeal accompanied by copies of the judgment and decree of the Lower Court been filed, it might have been urged that time was necessary to procure the copies and to prepare the memorandum; but in this case there was absolutely nothing to be done but to file the application. That being so, we are of opinion that due diligence was not shewn in making this application." Phillips, for the appellant, contended that the High Court was in error, under the circumstances of the case, in not exercising all the powers vested in them to enable the appellant to prosecute an appeal which under a mere mistake had been pre ferred in a Court which turned out to be incompetent to hear it. The case was one of considerable hardship, for in two suits against different defendants in respect of the same property, and raising the same issue, the appellant had succeeded before the High Court in one of them, and was now deprived of its fruits by failure in the other owing to a mere accident in procedure. Having regard to the fact that the suits had been heard together, and had been dealt with in one judgment with the consent and for the convenience of all parties, neither the want of a fresh memorandum of appeal nor the delay which occurred in realizing and taking steps to correct a bona fide mistake ought, he contended, to have been allowed to deprive the appellant of the full benefit of the decision which pronounced his title to the property in suit just. The appellant had shewn sufficient cause for not applying earlier for admission of his appeal, and he ought not to be deprived of his just rights by a mere slip in procedure easily remediable by the exercise of judicial discretion. The respondents did not appear. Dec. 13. The judgment of their Lordships was delivered by SIR ARTHUR WILSON. The appellant filed his suit on June 9, 1892, in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Mozufferpore. He alleged that he had purchased a share in a certain property from Bibi Sahodra; he complained that notwithstanding his purchase the property had been attached in execution by a creditor of his vendor, and he asked to have his title established and the property released from attachment. In the following year the appellant brought a second suit in the same Court with respect to the same property, asking for similar relief against another attachment by another creditor. The two suits were heard together, and the Subordinate Judge held that the appellant had failed to prove the genuineness of his purchase, and accordingly dismissed both suits on June 25, 1894. The present suit had originally been valued at a sum under Rs.5000, while the second suit was valued at a sum over Rs.5000. After the decision by the Subordinate Judge of the two suits against the appellant he filed an appeal in each case. In the second case he correctly valued the appeal above Rs.5000, and filed the appeal in the High Court, the proper tribunal to entertain it. But in the present suit, by an unfortunate error, as it is said, he undervalued his appeal, placing it below Rs.5000, and presented it on September 3, 1894, in the Court of the District Judge, a Court which, on a true valuation, had no jurisdiction to hear it. This mistake on the part of the appellant or his advisers has been the source of all his subsequent difficulties. On January 10, 1895, upon the petition of the appellant, a Division Bench of the High Court issued an order to shew cause why the appeal in this case should not be transferred to the High Court under s. 25 of the Civil Procedure Code, and heard with the other appeal already pending in the High Court. On January 10, 1895, upon the petition of the appellant, a Division Bench of the High Court issued an order to shew cause why the appeal in this case should not be transferred to the High Court under s. 25 of the Civil Procedure Code, and heard with the other appeal already pending in the High Court. The rule to shew cause came on for hearing before another Bench on August 9, 1895, and on that day the order was made absolute; but the order then made contains the important words " The pleader for the respondent objects to the transfer of this appeal to this Court on the ground that it has been wrongly preferred to the District Judge of Mozufferpore, and that upon its proper valuation the appeal should have been made to this Court. As no objection has been raised in the Court to which the appeal has been made, we direct the transfer of the appeal to this Court, leaving it open to the parties, at the hearing of the appeal, to raise this objection. The appellant must understand that, should the objection be allowed, he must take the consequences in regard to the course taken by him." Thus, whatever misconception the appellants advisers may have laboured under prior to August 9, 1895, on that day, at all events, their attention was distinctly called to the mistake which had been made, and to the consequent difficulties in which the appellant was involved. The next step taken was on September 16, 1895. By a petition verified on that date, and presented on behalf of the appellant, it was prayed that the memorandum of appeal, which had been filed in the District Court, might be admitted in the High Court and duly registered and numbered. An order to shew cause was issued in the terms of the petition, and this came on for argument on January 19, 1897. At the time when this application was made to the High Court the period limited by law for appealing against the original decision of the Subordinate Judge had long expired. An order to shew cause was issued in the terms of the petition, and this came on for argument on January 19, 1897. At the time when this application was made to the High Court the period limited by law for appealing against the original decision of the Subordinate Judge had long expired. And the most favourable light for the appellant in which his petition can be viewed is to regard it as an application to the Court to exercise the power conferred upon it by s. 5 of the Limitation Act, by which an appeal may be admitted after date " when the appellant satisfies the Court that he had sufficient cause " for not appealing in due time. The judges of the Division Bench, which dealt with the matter on January 19, 1897, first considered certain points which it is not necessary now to examine, and then they came to the questions arising under the section above cited. They said, "the applicant has not satisfied us that he had sufficient cause for not presenting his appeal before." They were not convinced that the appellant had really mistaken the value of his appeal; and they further thought that the delay between August 9 and September 16, for which no reason was shewn, would preclude the applicant from having the rule made absolute, and it was accordingly discharged. The appeal in this case came on for hearing before a Bench of the High Court on July 20, 1897, and the objection was at once raised that the Court had no jurisdiction to hear it. It appears that some time before this date the appeal in the other case had been heard, and the decision of the first Court reversed and a decree made in the appellants favour. In dealing with the appeal in this case the learned judges before whom it came held that, as to admitting the appeal to the High Court out of time, the matter was concluded by the decision of the Division Bench in discharging the order to shew cause on January 19, 1897, and, after considering the other points raised before them, they dismissed the appeal for want of jurisdiction. Against this dismissal of the appeal to the High Court the present appeal has been brought, and has been heard ex parte. Against this dismissal of the appeal to the High Court the present appeal has been brought, and has been heard ex parte. It has been pressed upon their Lordships that the case is one of apparent hardship, inasmuch as, in two cases raising the same question on the merits, the appellant has a decree in his favour in one, and a decree against him in the other, and that, though the whole difficulty has arisen from the mistakes of the appellant or his advisers, those mistakes were venial, and he ought, if possible, to be relieved from the serious consequences which they have entailed. In particular it was urged that the refusal of the Division Bench on January 19, 1897, to admit the appeal out of date, which was treated as conclusive at the hearing, was wrong. And it was suggested that the dismissal of the appeal by the High Court ought to be set aside and the case remitted to that Court, in order that it may again consider the question decided on January 19, 1897. Their Lordships are of opinion that they could not properly interfere in this case unless they were satisfied that the refusal by the Division Bench on January 19, 1897, to admit the appellants appeal after date was wrong, and they are not so ; satisfied. And the long interval of time which has elapsed between January 19, 1897, and the hearing of this appeal before their Lordships would enhance the danger of such interference. The appellant may or may not be responsible for this delay, but at least it has not been accounted for. Their Lordships will humbly advise His Majesty that this appeal should be dismissed.