GAMBLI Vs. K RAMAKRISHNAPPA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) On August 26, 1952, a Motor vehicle belonging to a company affording transport known as the Chikkamagalur Public Conveyance Motor Service, Chikkamagalur, which will be referred to as C.P.C. M. S. and which has been referred to as C.P.C. M. S. in both the Courts below dashed against a culvert and during that accident one of the passengers was killed. His wife brought a suit against the three partners of the C.P.C. M. S. the driver of the bus defendant 4 and the Canara Motor and General Insurance Co. Ltd. which was defendant 5, for the recovery of a sum of Rs. 8,000/- as compensation on behalf of herself and on behalf of her daughter Devali Bai and also Putta Naika's mother Ammanibai. She also claimed a sum of Rs. 10/- as notice charges. She charged defendant 4 with rash and negligent driving.

(2.) In their defence, the defendants repudiated the allegation that defendant 4 drove the motor vehicle rashly or negligently. They contended that the compensation claimed was excessive and although defendant 1 to 3 did not raise any such plea, defendant 5 which is an insurance company, very curiously urged that the suit was defective for non-joinder. It was stated that since under an agreement between C.P.C. M. S. and another company called the C.P.C. Company executed on August 31, 1932, the management of the C. P. M. C. S. had been entrusted to the C.P.C. Company, the suit which was brought without impleading the C.P.C. Company as a party was not maintainable.

(3.) The Civil Judge upheld the plea of actionable negligence and repelled the contention that the C.P.C. Company was a necessary party. He made a decree in favour of the plaintiff for the amount claimed by her.