The object of the rule is to enable one of the parties to a suit to obtain relief in appeal when the decree appealed Crom proceeds on a ground common to him and others. The Court in such an appeal ma} reserve or vary the decree in favour of all the parties who are in th~ same interest as the appellant. There wa~ some conflict of judicial opinion in the High Courts on the question whether power under 0. 41 r. 4 of the Code of Civil Procedure may be exercised where all the parties against whom a decree is passed on a ground which is common to them are not impleaded m the appeal. The preponderance of authority in the High Courts was that even in the absence of a person against whom a decree has been passed on a ground common with the appellant, the appeal was maintainable, and appropriate relief may be granted. It is, however, unnecessary to examine those decisions for, in our judgment, the question has been considered by this Court in Karam Singh Sobti and Anr. v. Shri Pratap Chand and Anr.(1 ). In that case a landlord of certain premises filed an action in ejectment against the tenant and the sub-tenant in respect of premises on the ground that the tenant had sub-let the premises without the landlord's consent. The Trial Judge decreed the suit holding that the landlord had not acquiesced in the sub-letting. The sub-tenant alone appealed to the Additional Senior Subordinate Judge who set aside the order of the Trial Court. It was urged before this Court that the appeal by the sub-tenant to the Subordinate Judge was incompetent, because the tenant against whom a decree in ejectment was passed had not appealed. On certain questiClillS which are not material for the purpose of this judgment, there was difference of opinion between Sarkar, J., on the one hand, and S. K. Das, Acting C.J., and Hidayatullah, J., on the other, but the Court unanimously held in that case that the appeal was maintainable before the Subordinate Judge, eventhough the tenant had not appealed against the order of the Court of First Instance. Sarkar, J., observed at p. 663 :
