adopted the decree and must, therefore, be precluded Bhau Ram from challenging its validity. He had no right to the v. money excepting such as the decree gave him. Having Baijnath Singh exercised that right he cannot be heard to say that the decree was invalid and, therefore, the right which he Sarkar j. had exercised, had never existed. The rule is well established in England as well as in our country, that a litigant is not permitted such . inconsistent courses of conduct and, so far as I am aware, never been departed from. As early as 1849 in Tinkler v. Bilder (1 ), Poliock, C. B., in dealing with a rule to set aside an order said, "It might be discharged simply on this narrow ground, that, under the circumstances of this case, the party applying to set aside the order in question in point of fact has adopted it :by taking something under it". In King v. Simmonds(') and Pearce v. Chaplin(') the same line of reasoning was adopted. It is true that in these cases the orders were said to have been adopted because costs, for the payment of which they had provided, had been received. It is also true that the orders were not such to which the parties directed to pay the costs, were entitled as a matter of right. But all these do not seem to me to make any difference. The question is, are the circumstances such that it would be inconsistent conduct to accept a benefit under an order and then to challenge it? I should suppose that for this purpose costs are as much benefit as anything else given by the order. Likewise when the orders were discretionary or such to which there was no right ex debito justitiae, there would be no reason to say that there could be no inconsistency if they were challenged after benefits under them had been accepted. For deciding such inconsistency, I am unable to discover that the discretionary nature of the order has any materiality.
