GOPI SHYAM Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the judgment and decree of the Sub Judge, 1st Class, Delhi dismissing with costs the suit filed by the plaintiff Gopi Shyam against the defendant. Union of India, for the recovery of Rs. 13,217.67 towards the loss sustained by him on account of the non-delivery of two silver bars consigned to him by the Northern Railway.

(2.) Gopi Shyam, the plaintiff, was employed in the Lucknow branch of a firm known as Inder Narain Har Narain which was carrrying on business in gold and silver with head office at Delhi and a branch at Lucknow. He left the employment of the above firm sometime in 1959 and was thereafter carrying on business as bullion broker at Phoolwali Gali, Lucknow. On 9-5-1961, he placed an order on telephone with M/s. Inder Narain Har Narain at Delhi for the purchase of two bars of silver. He asked them to send the silver bars by passenger train and send the relative parcel way-bill and bijak to their Lucknow branch for delivery to him against payment. The firm, on the same day, delivered two silver bars weighing 66.532 kilograms to the Northern Railway at Delhi for carriage to Lucknow. The silver bars were booked under parcel waybill No. 450059 dated 9-5-1961, which showed Gopi Shyam as the consignor and the consignee. The value of the bars was declared in the forwarding note as Rs. 13,000 and the railway freight" was pre-paid. The plaintiff's case is that M/s. Inder Narain Har Narain sent the parcel way-bill and bijak by post to their Lucknow branch on the same day but this letter and the parcel way-bill did not reach the branch at Lucknow. On 12-5-1961 Gopi Shyam went to the Lucknow parcel office of the Northern Railway and demanded delivery of the said silver bars but he was told that the delivery of the bars had already been effected on 11-5-1961. On 12-5-1961, the plaintiff lodged a report with the Railway Police at Lucknow. There was a railway police investigation but the goods could not be traced. It was in these drcumances that the plaintiff instituted asuit against the Railway Administration, after serving notices under section 77/104 of the Railways Act and section 80 of the Code of Civil Procedure, for the recovery of the sum of Rs. 13,217 being the value of the silver bars and the expenses incurred by him by way of sales-tax, railway freight etc.

(3.) In the plaint the following allegations, inter (alia, were made :-