VARADARAJULU NAYUDU S R Vs. PAPANASAM LABOUR UNION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AS he then was. Agreeing with the Courts below him, he held that the suit was within time. The correctness of this view is the only question for consideration. There were points in controversy which were decided at the earlier stages, but none of them now survives. The appellant, as president and secretary of the Papanasam Labour Union, which was then unregistered, collected subscriptions between the middle of 1938 and April 1943 from the labourers in the Papanasam Mills and issued printed receipts, some of which were statedly for the building fund. The suit out of which this appeal arises was for rendition of accounts and for recovery from the appellant of such amount as might be found due to him from the respondent. Respondents 2 to 5, who are among the labourers of the Madurai Mills at Ambasamudram before 16 October, 1943, figured as plaintiffs 2 to 5, for themselves and as representing the other labourers, they having obtained leave under order I, rule 8, Civil Procedure Code. On 16 October, 1943, the Papanasam Labour Union, Vikramasingapuram, was registered under the Trade Unions Act, 1926, and was plaintiff 1 in the suit.

(2.) IT was claimed that the defendant had collected from the labourers during the period as much as Rs. 52, 000 and that this amount was paid and received by him only as a trustee of the labourers who had subscribed and became vested in him for the specific purpose of being expended and utilized for all or any of the purposes contemplated by the Trade Unions Act, 1926. The plaintiffs charged the defendant with breach of trust and misappropriation of the funds collected by him without expending the same for the benefit of the subscribing labourers. On a criminal complaint filed by one of the labourers on 19 July, 1943, the Subdivisional Magistrate, Shermadevi, convicted the defendant of the offence of criminal breach of trust and sentenced him to eighteen months' regorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 1, 000 on 16 June, 1944. The defendant's appeal against the conviction to the Sessions Court and revision to this Court failed by 6 April, 1945. On 11 May, 1943, the complainant in the criminal case, who was one of the labourers, and certain other labourers of the unregistered union, sent a notice to the defendant calling upon him to render accounts, but this notice was returned because the defendant refused to receive it. The envelope of the registered notice, it was said, briefly bore the contents of the notice enclosed within. On 1 April, 1953, there was again a registered notice, but this time by a lawyer on behalf of the registered union, plaintiff 1, to the defendant demanding him to render accounts. The defendant, in his reply dated 8 April, 1953, denied his liability and stated that on 1 April, 1943, the unregistered labour union in its general body accepted the amount of Rs. 18, 345 as representing the correct balance as on that date on accounts admitted or furnished by the defendant and that this resolution was ratified on 18 September, 1949, by the general body of plaintiff 1. The suit was instituted on 25 April, 1953.

(3.) IN applying Art. 120 of the Limitation Act to the facts and holding the suit to be in time the learned Judge observed :