MADAN GOPAL Vs. BALAK RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Defendant's appeal. The Defendant Appellant is the owner of Bus No. U.P. I. 3346. He was carrying passengers by that bus and one of the passengers was the Plaintiff. The passengers are permitted to take some luggage with them. The Plaintiff was carrying a box and a hold all with him. The Plaintiff wanted to keep this luggage with him inside the bus but it was insisted by the driver and the conductor, the employees of the Appellant, that the goods be placed on the roof of the bus and they will be delivered to the Plaintiff at his destination When the bus reached the destination, it was found that the goods were missing Subseqently, the present suit was filed for an amount of Rs. 1456/-the price of the goods lost. Several issues were framed and issue No. 7 was framed about the applicability of Section 10 of the Carriers Act in the present case. The trial court decided all the issues in favour of the Plaintiff except issue No. 7 and held that the suit was bad as no notice was issued to the Defendant Under Section 10 of the Carriers Act. Consequently the suit was dismissed. An appeal was filed by the Plaintiff which has been allowed by the court below.

(2.) The lower appellate court held that the Carriers Act had no applicability and the Defendant was not a common carrier as defined in Carriers Act. Consequently the Plaintiff was entitled to the price of his goods that were lost by the negligence or misconduct of the servants of the Defendant Appellant.

(3.) The only question argued before me related to the applicability of Section 10 of the Carriers Act. The learned Counsel for the Appellant argued that the Defendant Appellant was a common carrier as defined in Section 2 of the Act "denoting a person, other than the Government, engaged in the business of transporting for hire property from place to place, by land or any land nevigation, for all persons in discriminately. "From the definition quoted above, the court below found that the Defendant was not carrying goods for hire but was transporting persons and the business of the Defendant was not of transporting property from place to place. The learned Counsel for the Appellant has relied upon the case of Radha Krishna Reddiar v Venkataswami Chhettiar reported in , AIR 1964 Mad. 476 In that case the passenger was carrying extra luggage in a bus and had paid charges for carrying that extra luggage. It was held that Carriers Act applied to the luggage which was to be transported by the Defendant for hire. That case was cited even before the Court below and the court below rightly held that that case had no application to the instant case. In our case admittedly no hire was charged for the goods that were taken with the Plaintiff by the Defendant's servants.