KASI ALIAS ALAGAPPA CHETTIAR AND ORS. Vs. RM. A. RM. V. RAMANATHAN CHETTIAR ALIAS SREENIVASAN CHETTIAR AND ANR.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by the defendants from the preliminary decree in O.S. No. 84 of 1942, on the file of the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Devakottai. The suit was instituted on 9th September, 1939, in that Court but subsequently transferred to the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Ramnad and again re -transferred to the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Devakottai and numbered as above. The plaintiffs prayed for the taking of the accounts of a partnership which stood dissolved on 23rd May, 1927, by the death of a partner whose interest had devolved on them. The appeal is mainly directed against the directions contained in the judgment and decree of the Court below as regards the taking of the accounts of the dissolved firm.

(2.) THE parties to the suit are Nattukottai Chetties, well known indigenous bankers, of South India, mostly resident in the districts of Madura and Ramnad, whose business activities however extend to Burma, Ceylon and the Federated Malay States. They carry on money -lending business abroad, mostly through agents, with their oor kadai or headquarters in their native place. The usual practice is for an agent to serve for a term of three years under a salary chit fixing his remuneration for the said period. At the end of the three years' period or earlier, if for any reason, the agency is terminated, the retiring agent closes the account and prepares an ainthogai or balance sheet. The retiring and the incoming agents settle the valuation of the outstandings and the other assets, with the approval of their principal, and the incoming agent takes them over at that valuation and conducts the business, collects the moneys lent by his predecessor and lends out moneys to borrowers who are, for the most part, owners of agricultural lands and plantations in and around the place where the money -lending business is carried on. In many cases these Nattukottai Chetti money -lenders are obliged to realize their outstandings only by taking a conveyance of lands belonging to their debtors. The lands so acquired by way of realistion are often treated as an asset of the money -lending business and the income derived there from is also carried into the accounts of the business and forms part of the profits. Sometimes lands are also acquired as an investment. The value of the lands fluctuates according to the current price of paddy, rubber or other produce grown on the lands. In consequence of the Tapanese occupation of Burma and other parts of South -east Asia, during the last war and the subsequent developments in those countries, landed properties situated there and owned by Indian Nationals have lost much of their value and attractiveness, as is apparent from the course of this litigation.

(3.) THE present suit was instituted by Ramanathan alias Srinivasan, the son of Valliappa acting through a next friend, as the first plaintiff, Meyyammai Achi alias sigappi achi brother's widow (since deceased) of Valliappa as the second plaintiff and her adopted son as the third plaintiff for the taking of the accounts of the dissolved firm of Rm. P. at Theinzig and incidental reliefs. The second and third plaintiffs claim to be entitled to a moiety of Valliappas interest inn the partnership by reason of a compromise in O.S. No. 14 of I939 on the file of the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Devakottai, entered into between the present plaintiffs inter se. The first defendant in the suit is the second son of Alagappa, the second defendent being the son of the first defendant. The third defendant is the son of Narayana, the first defendant's elder brother, who died in 1936. It is common ground that the Rm. P. firm stood dissolved on 23rd May, 1927. It may here be stated that the first defendant and his elder brother Narayana had an extensive money -lending business of their own at Rangoon with their own vilasam of Rm. P. and they also started their own separate money -lending business at Theinzig with the Rm. P. vilasam, in the latter half of 1930, in the premises of the dissolved Rm. P. firm. In addition to their share in the nett assets of the Rm. P. form as on 23rd May, 1927, the date of its dissolution, the plaintiffs claimed an account of the "profis and interest", alleged to have been earned by the first defendant and Narayana, by continuing to carry on the money -lending business with the property and assets of the dissolved firm.