GOVINDAN KARTHA Vs. PARAMESWARAN THAMPY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) On the very averments in the plaint, the defendant is a mere creditor of the plaintiff under no obligation to render him an account and so no suit for an account lies. Every bill for an account must be founded upon an obligation to render an account. The mere fact that the plaintiff asks for an account or brings his suit on accounts or that accounts have to be gone into in order to determine the account, if any, due to the plaintiff, will not make the suit a suit for an account. The defendant must first be an accounting party, in other words, must stand in some such relation to the plaintiff as that of agent or bailee or receiver or trustee or partner or mortgagee. See AIR 1932 Mad. 565 , AIR 1937 Cal. 359 and AIR 1947 Bom. 255.

(2.) The statement appended to the plaint in this case clearly showed the amounts due from the defendant to the plaintiff under several heads and the amounts paid by the defendant to the plaintiff The relationship between the two was, as I have already said, simply that of a debtor and creditor, the claim being for fees for services rendered. That being so, the Court below was quite right in regarding the suit as one for the recovery of the specific sum of Rs. 4560/- due to the plaintiff according to the statement, and in requiring the plaintiff to value his plaint and pay court fee accordingly. The framing of the plaint and the valuation of Rs. 100/- made by the plaintiff, as if his suit was one for accounts falling under S.3 (4) (c) of the Travancore-Cochin Court fees Act, was, in the circumstances a subterfuge which the court properly declined to countenance.