(1) This revision is against the order of the principal district munsif, bhimavaram, in an application under order 1, rule 10, civil procedure code, preferred by the respondents for their substitution as plaintiffs in a suit for possession of certain land and arrear of rent. The facts leading up to this revision may succinctly be stated. The respondents are owners of land in suit. There was a previous litigation between them in o. S. No. 35 of 1944 on the file of the subordinatejud. Se, eluru.

(2) In that suit sri kuppa yegnanarayana, an advoc ate practising at eluru was appointed special receiver to manage the suit land and other lands which belonged to the family of the respondents. It is common ground that as receiver he had instituted two previous suits for arrears of rent against the present petitioner and duly obtained decrees. The present suit o. S. No. 294 of 1957 also was laid by him as receiver against the same tenant for possession and arrear of rent. But it appeared that a few days prior to the institution of this suit in the bhimavaram munsif's court, the receiver had been discharged by the subordinate judge, eluru. The petitioner tenant, therefore, raised a defence that the suit as laid was incompetent in that the receiver, who sued as plaintiff had been discharged from receivership even before the commencement of the suit. The receiver thereafter informed the respondents of the suit and the defence. This led the respondents to apply to the court under order 1, rule 10, civil procedure code, to get themselves substituted as plaintiffs in the place of the erstwhile receiver. This application was resisted by the defendant - tenant on two grounds, first, that the application exceeded the legitimate scope of order 1, rule 10, civil procedure code, and secondly, that on the date of the application a fresh claim for rent arrear was barred by limitation. Both these objections were overruled by the court below, which allowed the present respondents to be substituted as plaintiffs. The defendant - tenant, who is aggrieved by this order, has come up to this court in revision to challenge its correctness.

(3) Much of the argument in this revision has centered round the provisions of clause (1) of rule 10 of order 1 of the code of civil procedure. It may, therefore, be quoted :

"where a suit has been instituted in the name of the wrong person as plaintiff or where it is doubtful whether it has been instituted in the name of the right plaintiff, the court may at any stage of the suit, if satisfied that the suit has been instituted through a bona fide mistake, and that it is necessary for the determination of the real matter in dispute so to do, order any other person to be substituted or added as plaintiff upon such terms as the court thinks just."

(4) The learned counsel for the defendant - petitioner has strenuously urged that in a case where the original plaintiff had no right to sue, the provisions of this rule cannot be invoked. According to him, the words " in the name of the wrong person as plaintiff " can cover only a case of misdescription of the plaintiff and not a case where a person institutes a suit without the right to do so. This contention seems to overlook the plain words of the statute. The expression " wrong person " cannot be confined merely to a person wrongly described. It is plainly wide enough to include a person whose name ought not to have been there as plaintiff because he had no right to file the suit. The words " wrong person " are undoubtedly apt words to describe him. I do not see why on principle such cases should be excluded from the purview of order 1, rule 10 (1). Authorities show that the words " where a suit has been instituted in the name of the wrong person as plaintiff" are wide enough to include those suits which were instituted by persons who had no right to institute them ; vide krishna boi v. The collector and government agent, tanjore, (1907) i. L. R. 30 mad. 19, and municipal committee, katol v. Imranali, a. I. R. 1934 nag. 159. The contention of the petitioner's learned counsel on this point is not therefore entitled to succeed. It is next contended for the petitioner that the receiver, in bringing the suit in his name as plaintiff, cannot be said to have acted under a bona fide mistake within the meaning of Order 1, rule 10 (1). This contention was advanced in the court below also and was rejected. The finding of the lower court is that, the receiver filed the suit through a bona fide mistake. Ordinarily, this finding of fact should have concluded te matter. But petitioner's learned counsel impugns this finding as one based on a misapprehension of the true import and signification of the expression "bona fide mistake". According to him, it does not comprehend foolish mistakes or mistakes made through carelessness. No authority has been cited to me in support of this proposition. The ordinary grammatical meaning of the expression does not seem readily to admit of the limitation contended for by the petitioner. Nor does the context in which the expression occurs in Order 1, rule 10 (1) appear to be susceptible of this interpretation. The object of the rule seems to be to save suits instituted honestly, although in the name of the wrong person as plaintiff. It is an enabling provision which has to be construed liberally rather than pedantically. A foolish mistake or a careless mistake can nonetheless be an honest mistake. And if it is honest, it is almost invariably also bona fide. Conversely, what is done dishonestly cannot be said to be done bona fide. So also, if a person knows it is wrong or incorrect to do a particular act and yet deliberately does it, he cannot be said to have acted bona fide. What he did may perhaps be called a mistake, but as he knew before hand that to do it would be a mistake and yet knowingly chose to do it, he cannot be heard to plead bona fide mistake on his part. An act done not mistakenly but deliberately with foreknowledge of the impropriety or infirmity of the contemplated act cannot be regarded as done honestly. It cannot therefore be described as bona fide mistake.

(5) More often than not an act which is not bona fide will be actuated by improper motives. And improper motive and honesty go ill together. Thus honesty can be said to be the chief element of a bona fide act. In the instant case the receiver undoubtedly acted honestly in instituting the suit in question. No improper motive actuated him to file the suit. Admittedly, he did not seek any personal benefit or gain by filing it. It is not gainsaid that he sued only in the interest of the estate of which he was receiver although at the time he commenced the action he had ceased to be receiver. It was a mistake on his part to have filed the suit as receiver for the benefit of the estate at a time when his receivership had come to an end. But that mistake, however foolish or careless it be, was without doubt bona fide. It is therefore idle to contend that this is not a case of bona fide mistake falling under Order 1, rule 10 (1).

(6) The decision of a division bench of the calcutta high court reported in nistarini dassya v. Sarat chandra mojumdar, a. I. R. 1916 cal. 337, is apposite here. That was a case where a suit on a registered mortgage bound was instituted by the widow of the mortgagee purporting to represent the estate of her deceased husband. She assumed this role because she had been appointed administratrix of the estate and had functioned as such for some period of time. But she brought the suit after her powers of administration had come to an end and her sons had become competent to institute the suit. It was not disputed in that case that only the sons were competent to sue and not their widowed mother. The same defence as is raised in the instant case by the defendant - tenant was raised in that case also. But it was repelled by the calcutta high court, which permitted the sons to be susbstituted as plaintiffs in the place of their widowed mother, who was, as i already stated, incompetent to sue. Their lordships stated thus :

"where a mistake is not made deliberately and where it is honestly made, the mistake is bona fide."

(7) Petitioner's learned counsel then argued that even if it be granted that the receiver brought the suit through" a bona fide mistake it was not permissible to substitute the respondents as plaintiffs at a time when a fresh suit for rent arrear was time - barred. He relied for this position on krishnaji v. Hanmaraddi, a. I. R. 1934 bom. 385. A division bench of the bombay high court in that case refused to substitute the name of the father for that of the son who had brought the suit. Their decision was to a large extent based on the circumstance that on the date when the substitution was sought a fresh suit had become barred by limitation. They founded their reasoning on section 22 of the limitation act. This decision seems to me to be clearly distinguishable as it was rendered on facts which are far removed from the facts of the present case. In the bombay case, a son instituted the suit in his own right on a promissory - note which was executed in favour of his father. He did not sue on behalf of the joint family or as heir of his father. When it was pointed out in defence that the son was not competent to institute a suit on a promissory - note of which he was not the holder, an attempt was made to show that the father who was the promisee had renounced the world and thus brought about his civil death. This attempt however failed. It was almost impossible to urge in the bombay case that the son sought to represent the estate of the father on the joint family or that he filed the suit for the benefit of the father. On the contrary, he laid the action for his own benefit and in the purported exercise of his own right. It was in these circumstances that the bombay high court held that the father ought not to be substituted as plaintiff, at a time when a suit by the father would have been barred by limitation. I do not think this decision can successfully be pressed into service in the present case, the facts of which are, as i already indicated, far different from those of the bombay case.

(8) The receiver in the present case obviously sued on behalf of and for the bene fit of the estate of which the respondents have been the owners ; in truth and substance therefore, he purported to represent the respondents ; when subsequently the respondents themselves were brought on record eo nomine as plaintiffs, it cannot reasonably be said that an altogether new suit by entirely new persons came into being. The respondents must be deemed to have been plaintiffs by necessary implication from the very beginning of the suit ; the substitution of their names later on as plaintiffs only rendered explicit what previously had remained implicit.

(9) By the substitution of the respondents as plaintiffs the suit itself did not undergo any essential change but continued to be the same. In this view of the matter, i am unable to agree that there is force in the petitioner's contention based on section 22 of the limitation act. The learned counsel for the respondents has drawn my attention to the decision in mohideen v. Mohammed, (1955) 1 m. L. J. 337 : i. L. R. (1955) mad. 1293. That was a suit instituted by a partnership firm in the firm name under the provisions of order 30. The firm in question was a foreign firm which could not avail of the benefit of order 30. It was, therefore, contended that the suit as laid was incompetent. The partners thereupon applied to be brought into the array of plaintiffs and that was allowed. The objection raised by the defendants was that, the partners ought not to have been permitted to substitute themselves in the place of the firm as such. This contention was rejected by a division bench of the madras high court consisting of chief justice rajamannar and justice rajagopala ayyangar. The ratio of this decision, in brief, is that the suit as originally laid was on behalf of the partners of the firm, who were subsequently impleaded eo nomine as plaintiffs. It was, therefore, only a case of clarifying what was somewhat obscure previously or of correcting a misdescription of the plaintiff.

(10) Almost the same view was expressed in a somewhat similar case by their lordships of the supreme court in purshottam umedbhai and co. V. Manilal and sons, (1961) 1 s. C. J. 383. These decisions have been sought to be distinguished by the petitioner's learned counsel on the ground that the use of a firm name is a compendious way of stating the names of all the partners constituting the partnership. But the fact remains that the individual partners were not originally brought on record and it was not permissible in the particular case to sue in the name of the firm, because the beneficial provisions of order 30, civil procedure code could not be invoked. It is true that the firm name stood for the partners of the firm and therefore the suit was deemed to be one by and on behalf of the partners themselves. I do not think it is any distant step from this reasoning to say that in the instant case also the name of the receiver stood for the estate, which belonged to the respondents who were substituted by the court below in the place of the receiver. This is not a suit which the receiver laid for his own benefit. If he had obtained a decree, that would have enured only for the benefit of the respondents. Therefore, it seems to me in essence the suit was laid for and on behalf of the respondents. If this is the correct position, by substituting the respondents as plaintiffs the court was only making explicit what was necessarily implicit in the action as laid. Therefore, the instant case can be said to bear a resemblance in principle to the case decided in mohideen v. Mohammed, (1955) 1 m. L. J. 337 : i. L. R. (1955) mad. 1993.

(11) Apart from all this, i think the true object of rules of procedure is not to defeat an honest plaintiff on narrow, hyper - technical grounds, but to help him obtain redress in a court of law. Order 1, rule 10 (1) is what may be called a curative provision and it will be contrary to its spirit and object to construe or apply it in too narrow and rigid a manner.

(12) For the reasons stated above, this revision fails and it has to be dismissed with costs. Revision dismissed.