JUDGMENT : 1. The history of this litigation is fully given in the judgment of Piggott, J. dated 30th April 1912, and I need not recapitulate what was stated there. The suit which had been instituted in the Court of an Assistant Collector of the Second Class was; remanded by the District Judge for trial on the merits, on his finding that the revenue Court had jurisdiction, to try the suit, overruling the Collector who held that the suit was triable by at civil Court and not by a revenue Court. A question of jurisdiction therefore was decided in the suit. On remand, the first Court dismissed the suit. On appeal the Collector upheld that decree. From the Collector's decree a second appeal was taken before the learned District Judge. He dismissed the appeal on the ground that it raised no question of proprietary title or of jurisdiction within the meaning of Section 180, Clause 2 of the Agra Tenancy Act, and that therefore no second appeal lay. This application in revision is against that order. 2. It has been argued on behalf of the opposite party that under S. 180, Cl. (2) it is necessary that the judgment appealed from should have decided a question of jurisdiction, and as that question had already been decided by the District Judge himself on a former occasion no further second appeal lay to him on the merits. It seems to pie, having regard to the marked difference of language between Cls. (a) and Cl. (b) of S. 180(2), that a second appeal will lie in any suit of the kind mentioned in that section to the District Judge in which a question of jurisdiction has been decided at any time. This was the view taken in the case of Salamat Ali Khan v. Mt. Taba (Second Appeal No. 513 of 1908) decided by a Division-Bench of this Court, which ruling was followed in Second Appeal No. 78 of 1910 decided on 31st October 1910 by a single Judge of this Court. Although this decision turns on the meaning to be attached to Cl. (f), Section 177 of the Tenancy Act, I cannot see any distinction in principle which would make them inapplicable to this case.
Although this decision turns on the meaning to be attached to Cl. (f), Section 177 of the Tenancy Act, I cannot see any distinction in principle which would make them inapplicable to this case. I accordingly allow this application and Betting aside the decree of the learned District Judge direct that he restore the appeal to its original number of pending appeals and dispose of it according to law. The costs of this application will be costs in the cause.