ARASAPPA PILLAI Vs. V THANDAVAN PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The short question for detrmination is this appeal which evoked a long argument of two days in fall and the better part of a third is whether Act XXV [35] of 1948 applies to cases of insolvency of a manager other than the father of a Hindu joint family. I feel highly indebted to counsel for their forcible and pointed and in no sense unnecessarily prolonged argument. The lower appellate Court has answered the question in the negative and the appellants assail the answer as Erroneous,

(2.) The primary matter for consideration is the language of the body of new Section 28-A together with the second proviso thereto and not the first of Act v [5] of 1920 which has come in by reason of Act XXV [25] of 1948. In the body of the new section the crucial words are "for his own benefit" and in the relevant proviso the material words are the words of reference to 28th day of July 1942. That date is the date of the judgment of a Full Bench of this Court reported in Ramasastrulu v. Balakrishna Rao, I. L. R. (1943) Mad. 83: (A. I. R. (29) 1942 Mad. 682 F.B.) which throw out an expression of trust on the part of the Full Bench that the Central Legislature would bring the Provincial Insolvency Act and the Presidency Towns Insolvency Act into line in respect of the difference between them that the latter contains Section 52(2)(b) for which there is no counterpart in the former. The trust so expressed has been fulfilled by the insertion of Section 28-A in the Provincial Insolvency Act in terms verbatim et litteratim identical with those of Section 52(2)(b) of Presidency Towns Insolvency Act.

(3.) Looking at the words "for his own benefit" occurring in the body of the section it prima facie strikes one that they can have reference only to a father manager and not to a manager other than the father. To use the language of Leach C. J. in the Full Bench judgment in Ramasastrulu v. Balakrishna Rao, I. L. R. (1943) Mad. 83: (A. I. R. (29) 1942 Mad. 682 F.B)