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Teja Singh, C.J.—This is a petition for issue of writs of certiorari etc., Under Article 226 of the Constitution if India and in the alternative Under Article 227. The Petitioner prayed, inter alia, that writs of ''certiorari'' and ''mandamus'' be issued against Respondents 1 and 2 the appellate authority (Deputy Commissioner, Bhatinda) and the Assistant Commissioner, Bhatinda & the orders made by them be quashed. The petition was admitted by a learned Judge on 3-7-1951. Later on the Petitioner applied that the records of the Deputy Commissioner and the Assistant Commissioner should be sent for but this request was refused toy the same learned Judge.
The question whether the records should be sent for at this stage has now become material, because the Petitioner''s counsel argues that the Deputy Commissioner while holding that the appeal preferred to him from the order of the Assistant Commissioner who decided the case as a Rent Controller was not within time did not take into consideration the fact that the day upon which the appeal should or could have been instituted was a public holiday. In fact my opinion is that in an application for a writ of certiorari it is ordinarily necessary that the record of the proceedings of the lower Court or the inferior officer, as the case may be, should be sent for and this is implied in the very nature of the writ.
In Halsbury''s Laws of England, Volume IX, it is mentioned that the writ of certiorari issues out of a superior Court and is directed to the Judge or other officer of an inferior Court of record. It requires that the records of the proceedings in some cause or matter depending before such inferior Court shall be transmitted into the superior Court to be there dealt with, in order to insure that the applicant for the writ may have the more sure and speedy justice The object of the writ particularly in Civil proceedings, is to give relief from some inconvenience or error supposed, in the particular case, to arise from a matter being disposed of before an inferior Court less capable than the High Court of rendering complete and effectual justice (sic) Accordingly I order that the record of the proceedings before the Deputy Commissioner in which he passed the order which is the subject-matter of the present petition, should be sent for.
(The following order was passed by his Lordship after hearing the case on receipt of the record. Order D/- 11-2-52).
(1a) This is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for issue of writs of certiorari etc., against four persons, viz the Appellate Authority, District Bhatinda, the Assistant Commissioner, Bhatinda, the Sub Judge 2nd Class, Bhatinda, and Harl Ram. The facts briefly stated are as follows:
Harl Ram Respondent 4 applied to the Assistant Commissioner who was acting as the Rent Controller for the eviction of the Petitioner, from a property that the latter had rented from Hart Ram, on various allegations. The Assistant Commissioner accepted the petition and ordered the eviction of the Petitioner. The Petitioner appealed to the Appellate Authority, i.e., Respondent against the order of the Assistant Commissioner. The Appellate Authority without going into the merits of the petition end without taking into consideration the various objections that the Petitioner had taken against the Assistant Commissioner''s order dismissed the appeal on the ground that it was barred by time. After this Hari Ram applied to Sub Judge 2nd Class, Bhatinda (Respondent for execution of the Assistant Commissioners order. The Petitioner''s contention is that since the appellate authority while holding that the appeal preferred by the Petitioner to him was barred by time ignored to take into consideration the provisions of Section 4, Limitation Act, which applied to these proceedings by virtue of Section 29 of the same Act his order dismissing the appeal was illegal and without jurisdiction and accordingly the order of the Assistant Commissioner could not be executed by the Sub Judge and'' the Petitioner was entitled to have the Appellate Authority''s order set aside by this Court by issue of a writ of certiorari. Respondents 1 to 3 are absent in spiel of tier vice and it is only Respondent 4 who contests the petition.
Mr. Lachhman Dass, who appears on behalf of Hari Ram, contends that since the Appellate Authority decided the question of limitation against the Petitioner and he had jurisdiction to decide the question one way or the other it cannot be said that he acted without jurisdiction,. He further contends that the powers of this Court Under Article 226 in so far as they relate to the issue of writs to inferior Courts are analogous to those given to the High Court by Section 115, Code of CPC and a decision by an inferior Court on the question of limitation, even if wrong, does not mean that the Court refused to exercise jurisdiction or exercised it wrongly or with material irregularity. In support of his contention learned Counsel has referred me to a single Bench decision of the Madras High Court - (Paitchaikala) Mangamma Vs. Nallamti Peda Ammanna, and - ''Hardwari Mai v. Chiranji Lal AIR 1926 Lah 355 (B).
In the former case an application to set aside an'' award was dismissed by the lower Court as barred by limitation and the High Court held that no question of jurisdiction was involved and accordingly a revision was not competent. In the second case, it was held that a High Court cannot interfere u/s 115 merely because the lower Court wrongly decided that the suit was barred by limitation. In my opinion, both these cases are distinguishable, because the Courts concerned considered the question of limitation urged before them and since they had the power to decide the question wrongly or rightly the fact that they decided wrongly did not raise any, question of jurisdiction.
In the present case, the precise provision of the Limitation Act that is Section 4 which applies to these proceedings by virtue of Section 29(a) was not considered by the Appellate Authority All that the Appellate Authority did was that he calculated the time spent by the Petitioner in obtaining copies of the order of the Rent Controller and since he found that if that time be deducted the appeal should have been instituted on 24-12-1952 and it was actually instituted on the 29th of December it was barred by time. Now both the parties are agreed that 24th to 28th were public holidays and the appeal could not have been instituted on any one of these dates and had the Appellate Authority given the Petitioner the benefit of S. 4, Limitation Act, which he should have, the appeal could not have been thrown out as barred by time. Mr. Lachhman Das argues that the'' cause of this mistake was that the fact that 124th to 28th December were public holidays was not brought to the notice of the Appellate Authority but my opinion is that this was a matter of which the Appellate Authority himself should have taken notice and in failing to do so he committed a serious blunder, with the result that he precluded himself from deciding the appeal on merits or in other words he failed to exercise jurisdiction vested in him by law.
I may refer in this connection to the observations made by their Lordships of the Privy Council in - AIR 1949 239 (Privy Council) The question before their Lordships was whether an erroneous decision by a subordinate court on a question of law could be a valid ground for interference by the High Court en revision. This is what they observed at page 242 of the printed report:
There have been a very large number of decisions of Indian High Courts on Section 115, to many of which their Lordships have referred. Some of such decisions prompt the observation that High Courts have not always appreciated that although error in a decision of a Subordinate Court does not by itself involve that the sub-ordinal e court casketed illegally or with material irregularity so as to justify interference in revision under Sub-section (c), nevertheless, if the erroneous decision results in the subordinate Court exercising a jurisdiction not vested in it by law, or failing to exercise a jurisdiction so vested, a case for revision arises under Sub-section (a) or Sub-section (b) and Sub-section (c) can be ignored. The cases of - ''Babu Ram v. Munna Lal'', AIR 1927 All 353 (D) and - ''Hari Bhikaji v. Naro Vishvanath 9 Bom 432 (E) may be mentioned as cases in which a subordinate Court by its own erroneous decision (erroneous that is'' in the view of the High Court), in the one case on a point of limitation and in the other on a question of res judicata invested itself with a jurisdiction which in law it did not possess, and the High Court held wrongly their Lord-ships think, that it had no power to interfere in revision to prevent such a result.
I am aware that this observation is of the nature of an obiter dictum but it is well settled that even the obiter dicta of the Privy Council are entitled to weight and respect.
Apart from this it may be mentioned that the, power of the High Court under Article 226 under which: writs are issued is different from the powers of revision given to it by Section 115, Code of CPC It was held by the Bombay High Court in - Mohsinali Mahomedali and Others Vs. The State of Bombay, that the High Court when exercising jurisdiction to issue a writ of certiorari does not act either as the Court of appeal or that of revision and it has no power to correct either findings of fact or even errors of law. It was further held that the sole function of the Court is to correct persons or tribunals exercising judicial or quasi judicial functions when they assume jurisdiction which they do not possess, or when they refuse to exercise jurisdiction which is vested in them . by law, or when in the exercise of their jurisdiction they violate principles of natural justice. To the principle that the superior Court will not correct errors of law of the lower tribunal Chagla C. J. in the same case laid down an exception. His observations are:
It will be noticed that in this case there was an error on the face of the record, the error was not discovered by going behind the declaration, and it is well settled that to the ordinary principle which we have referred that a superior Court will not correct errors of lat of the lower tribunal there is an exception, and that exception is that the superior court will interfere when such an error of law is patent on the face of the record.
The learned Judge quoted with approval and relied upon the following proposition of law stated at page 887 of Halsbury''s Laws of England (Hail-sham Edition) Volume 9:
Where upon the face of the proceedings them selves appears that determination of the inferior court is wrong in law, certiorari to quash will be granted.
In - ''Sagatmal Bhikchand v. M.V. Deo'' AIR 1952 Nag 4 (G) a Bench of the Nagpur High Court held that error patent on the face of the proceedings of an inferior court must be treated as an error of jurisdiction for the purpose of quashing by issuing a writ of certiorari. Since in the present case the decision of the Appellate Authority on the question of limitation was not only erroneous but the mistake was apparent on. the face of the record I hold that it is a proper case in which relief by way of writ should be granted.
Accordingly the petition is allowed, the order of the Appellant Authority is quashed and the Petitioner''s appeal preferred to that authority against the order of the Rent Controller is sent back to him with the direction that he should decide'' it on merits. It was urged by the Petitioner''s counsel that since the result of quashing the order of the appellate Authority is that the appeal from the order of the Rent Controller will have to be regarded as pending in the Court of the Appellate Authority a writ should also be issued to the Sub Judge 2nd Class, Bhatinda, prohibiting him from executing the order of the Rent Controller but the law is that if an Appellant Wishes that proceedings relating to execution of an order of an inferior court be stayed he must obtain a stay order from the appellate Court and mere putting in an appeal docs not result in stay of proceedings. Accordingly I refuse to issue any orders to the Sub Judge and leave it to the Petitioner to apply to the Appellate Authority for stay of execution proceedings. This means that the petition is dismissed in so far as it relates to the Sub Judge II Class, Bhatinda. As regards Hart Ram I do not think it is necessary to issue any writ to him either. So the petition as against him is also dismissed.. In veiw of the fact that it was the mistake committed by the Appellate Authority that has led to this litigation I direct that the parties shall bear their own costs.