LALA RAM Vs. LALA OM PRAKASH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The facts which give rise to this appeal may be briefly stated as follows:

(2.) Om Prakash, defendant No. 2, and the plaintiff were partners. The partnership was dissolved and accounts were taken and it was agreed that the plaintiff would get all the assets and discharge all the liabilities of the partnership and that the defendant No. 2, would receive as his share a lump sum of money.

(3.) When the plaintiff examined the partnership accounts, he found a debt item recoverable from defendant No. 1 Bankey Lal. A suit was filed by the plaintiff against Bankey Lal defendant No. 1 and Om Prakash defendant No. 2. Against Bankey Lal, the cause of action was the debt owing to the dissolved partnership. Against Om Prakash the cause of action as stated before me now seems to be founded on the allegations that Om Prakash had not kept the account books correctly and what had been shown as a debt due to the firm from Bankey Lal was in fact not a debt due from him but was a repayment of a part of the amount which had been received and that the plaintiff having been deceived the settlement was not binding and an equivalent amount was recoverable from Om Prakash. The defendants at any rate in their written statements had taken up the position as set out above and that is how the court below has understood the matter. The court below has dismissed the plaintiff's suit as against Bankey Lal on the ground that Bankey Lal owed nothing to the firm. It has also dismissed the suit as against Om Prakash. It has come to the conclusion that it was not established that the sum of Rs. 1,000/- was due to the plaintiff's firm from defendant No. 1 but that Rs. 1,000/- was repaid to the firm by Bankey Lal before the firm was dissolved and that no money was returned or paid after the dissolution of the partnership or after the 3rd. of January, 1943 to Om Prakash so as to make him accountable as a person who had received money to the use of another. Upon these finding the suit against Om Prakash was rightly dismissed.